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UNIVERSITY  OF   ILLINOIS   STUDIES' 

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Vol.  XI 


March-June,  1923 


Nos.  i  and  2 


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ERNEST  L.  BOGART  JOHN  A.  FAIRLIE 

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PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

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BY  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
COPYRIGHT,  1924 


ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN 
SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861 


ROBERT  ROYAL  RUSSEL 

Instructor  in  History 

Western  State  Normal  School 

Kalamazoo,  Michigan 


305 
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All 

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fc^7£?« 


f  1 1' 


To  My  Father  and  Mother 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface 9 

Introduction:   The  Bases  of  Southern  Sectionalism. ...     n 

I.  Agitation  in   Behalf  of  Direct  Trade  with   Europe, 

1837-1839 15 

II.  Movement  for  the  Diversification  of  Industry, 

1840-1852 33 

III.  Economic  Aspects  of  the  Southern  Movement, 

1844-1852 65 

IV.  Plans  for  Establishing  Direct  Trade  with  Europe, 

1847-1860 93 

V.  The  Southern  Commercial  Convention,  1852-1859 123 

VI.  Attitude  toward  Protective  Legislation,  Federal,  State, 

and  Local,   1840-1860 151 

VII.  Economic  Aspects  of  the  Disunion  Movement, 

1852-1860 179 

VIII.  Factors  which  Tended  to  Allay  Discontent  with  the 

South's  Economic  System,   1850-1860 199 

IX.  Economic  Aspects  of  the  Secession  of  the  Cotton 

States,   1860-1861 231 

X.  Early  Economic  Policies  of  the  Confederate  States, 

1861-1862 255 

XI.  Economic  Considerations  Affecting  the  Decision  of 

the  Border  States 273 

XI.  Summary  and  Conclusions 289 

Appendix 295 

Bibliography 299 


PREFACE 

The  object  of  this  monograph  is  to  attempt  to  evaluate  some  of 
the  causes  for  the  secession  of  our  Southern  states  which,  to  me, 
seem  generally  to  have  been  underestimated.  Lack  of  time  has 
prevented  the  utilization  of  much  available  newspaper,  pamphlet, 
tand  manuscript  material  of  considerable  value;  but  great  confi- 
dence is  felt  that  the  evidence  is  typical,  if  not  exhaustive.  The 
work  deals  with  matters  which  even  today  in  a  measure  arouse 
the  passions  or  prejudices  of  men;  the  greatest  effort  has  been 
made,  therefore,  to  preserve  a  detached  point  of  view.  A  better 
contemporary  understanding  of  the  economic  relations  of  the  sec- 
tions before  1861  might  have  moderated  the  bitterness  of  the 
sectional  controversy;  a  better  understanding  of  them  even  now 
would  soften  its  memories. 

The  subject  of  this  study  was  suggested  to  me  while  I  was 
preparing  a  master's  thesis  on  the  subject  "Early  Projects  for  a 
Railroad  to  the  Pacific"  under  the  direction  of  Professor  F.  H. 
Hodder,  of  the  University  of  Kansas.  The  preparation  of  the 
study  was  begun  in  1916  under  the  supervision  of  Professors  E. 
B.  Greene  and  A.  C.  Cole  and  completed  under  the  supervision 
of  Professor  T.  C.  Pease,  of  the  University  of  Illinois.  I  am  in- 
debted to  each  of  these  men  for  very  valuable  criticisms  and  sug- 
gestions. I  have  used  the  works  of  many  men  who  have  written 
on  related  subjects,  and  am  under  greater  obligations  to  them 
than  citations  in  the  footnotes  or  bibliography  can  indicate.  The 
materials  used  in  the  preparation  of  this  monograph  were  found, 
with  few  exceptions,  either  in  the  Library  of  the  University  of 
Illinois,  the  Library  of  Congress,  or  the  Library  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago.  To  the  officials  and  staffs  of  these  institutions,  I 
am  grateful  for  much  assistance  and  many  courtesies. 

ROBERT  R.  RUSSEL. 


INTRODUCTION 
•   THE  BASES  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM 

The  most  significant  fact  of  American  history  from  about  1820 
to  1875,  at  least,  was  sectionalism.  The  section  which  was  at  all 
times  most  clearly  defined  was  the  South.  The  term  South,  how- 
ever, did  not  have  the  same  connotation  at  all  times  and  to  all 
men.  Until  about  1845  the  term  South  was  commonly  applied 
only  to  the  South  Atlantic  states.  The  states  of  the  lower  Missis- 
sippi valley  were  gradually  brought  under  the  term  as  their 
economic  and  social  organization  and  general  conditions  approx- 
imated those  in  the  old  South  and  differentiated  from  those  of  the 
states  of  the  upper  part  of  the  valley,  for  Southern  sectionalism 
had  bases  in  several  distinctive  features  besides  latitude. 

Foremost  of  these  was  the  existence  of  slavery.  For  reasons 
chiefly  geographical,  slavery  had  never  flourished  in  colonial  days 
above  Mason  and  Dixon's  Line  as  it  had  below  it,  and  the  insti- 
tution had  been  abolished  there  during  or  shortly  after  the  Revo- 
lutionary War.  Into  the  Old  Northwest,  slavery  had  not  been 
extended;  while  into  Kentucky  and  Missouri  and  the  region  to  the 
south  it  had  been  carried  in  the  same  form  as  in  the  South  At- 
lantic states.  To  be  sure,  the  slave  population  was  not  evenly  dis- 
tributed throughout  the  South.  The  great  majority  of  the  slaves 
were  concentrated  in  the  so-called  black  belts,  which  corres- 
ponded roughly  to  the  areas  best  adapted  to  the  cultivation  of 
cotton,  tobacco,  sugar  cane,  rice,  and  hemp,  and  the  concentra- 
tion became  more  pronounced  as  the  Civil  War  approached.  Out- 
side the  black  belts  the  South  was  upon  an  essentially  free-labor 
basis.  Within  the  black  belts  the  plantation  predominated  over 
the  farm;  outside,  the  farm  prevailed.  But  the  slaveholding 
planters  were  the  dominant  element  in  Southern  society,  and  the 
people  of  the  farming  districts  had  interest  in  slavery  in  that  they 
found  markets  for  their  surplus  products  chiefly  in  the  planting 
regions.  The  institution  of  slavery  came  to  be  regarded  as  abso- 
lutely essential  to  Southern  prosperity.  Consequently  Southern 
men  defended  it  as  right,  shaped  their  political  policies  to  protect 
it  and  secure  its  extension,  and  demanded  that  attacks  upon  it 
cease. 


12        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [l2 

There  was  basis  for  sectionalism,  also,  in  divergent  economic  in- 
terests and  conditions.  To  what  extent  the  divergence  was  due  to 
geography,  to  what  extent  due  to  other  factors,  including  social 
organization,  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  inquire.  The  Southern 
states,  however,  were  engaged  largely  in  the  production  of  a  few 
great  staples — cotton,  tobacco,  and  sugar — not  produced  in  other 
states  of  the  Union.  Of  these  staples  only  a  small  proportion  was 
consumed  at  home;  much  the  greater  part  was  exported  either  to 
the  North  or  to  Europe.  The  portion  exported  abroad  constituted 
considerably  more  than  half  the  nation's  total  exports.  Manu- 
facturing and  mining  had  made,  and  were  making  during  the 
period  under  survey,  little  progress  in  the  South  compared  with 
the  same  industries  in  other  sections;  the  exports  of  the  South 
were  exchanged  in  part  for  agricultural  products  of  the  West  but 
chiefly  for  manufactured  goods  of  the  East  or  Europe.  The  ocean 
commerce  of  the  South,  whether  coastwise  or  foreign,  was  carried 
almost  altogether  in  Northern  or  European  vessels;  foreign  goods 
for  Southern  consumption  came  largely  by  way  of  Northern 
ports.  Only  a  small  percentage  of  the  Southern  population  was 
urban;  the  cities  and  towns  of  the  section  were  few  and  small 
compared  with  those  of  the  East  or  even  those  of  the  growing 
Northwest.  The  banking  capital  of  the  country  was  largely  con- 
centrated in  the  East;  the  South  was  not  financially  independent. 

Divergent  economic  interests  of  the  sections  led  to  the  advocacy 
of  different  policies,  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  government,  as  re- 
gards tariff,  taxation,  navigation  laws,  and  the  amount  and  ob- 
jects of  government  expenditures.  The  disparity  of  the  sections  in 
industry  and  commerce  was  to  many  Southerners  an  evidence  of 
lack  of  prosperity  in  the  South  commensurate  with  that  of  the 
North,  and,  consequently,  was  a  cause  of  dissatisfaction,  and  was 
galling  to  Southern  pride.  The  causes  of  Southern  "decline" 
were  sought  for;  it  was  variously  attributed  to  geography  and 
climate,  qualities  of  the  people,  misdirection  of  private  enterprise, 
mistaken  policies  of  the  state  and  local  governments,  and  the  un- 
equal operation  of  the  Federal  government,  but  not,  generally,  to 
slavery.  Remedies  were  proposed,  corresponding  roughly  to  the 
causes,  as  analyzed. 

Other  bases  for  sectionalism  were  of  much  less  importance.  Be- 
cause of  early  conditions  of  settlement,  and  especially  because 
later  immigration  was  mostly  into  the  non-slaveholding  states, 


13]  INTRODUCTION  13 

there  were  slight  differences  in  the  racial  types  of  the  sections. 
The  sparsity  of  population  and  the  social  organization  in  the 
South  were  accountable  for  backwardness  in  general  education 
and  cultural  development.  Early  conditions  of  settlement,  agri- 
cultural pursuits,  slavery  and  the  plantation  system,  and  sparsity 
of  population  largely  explain  the  variation  from  other  sections  in 
political  ideals  and  methods. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  study  to  attempt  to  discover  to  what 
extent  Southern  sectionalism  had  its  basis  in  divergent  economic 
interests  and  conditions.  The  study  is  primarily  a  study  of  public 
opinion.  It  will  require  an  examination  of  the  opinions  of  South- 
ern men  as  to  the  divergence  of  economic  interests  and  the  extent 
of  the  disparity  of  economic  development  in  the  sections,  the 
causes  of  such  disparity,  and  the  proper  remedies  therefor.  Actual 
economic  conditions  and  changes  will  be  described  and  explained 
only  in  so  far  as  such  description  and  explanation  are  essential 
to  an  understanding  of  Southern  public  opinion.  It  is  hoped,  how- 
ever, that  incidentally  some  additional  light  may  be  thrown  upon 
the  economic  status  of  the  ante-bellum  South,  and  that  some  con- 
clusions may  be  drawn  as  to  the  justification  for  Southern  discon- 
tent. Frequent  references  will  of  necessity  be  made  to  the  sec- 
tional quarrel  over  slavery,  and  the  attempt  will  be  made  to  main- 
tain proper  proportion  between  the  minor  aspects  of  sectional- 
ism herein  treated  and  the  major  issue  of  the  sectional  struggle. 

In  seeking  to  analyze  Southern  opinion  relative  to  the  matters 
mentioned  above,  several  movements  in  behalf  of  the  economic 
regeneration  of  the  South  will  be  described,  and  the  accompany- 
ing discussion  examined.  Evidence  of  economic  discontent  can  be 
found  in  the  discussion  of  some  of  the  outstanding  political  ques- 
tions of  the  day,  and  such  bodies  of  discussion  will,  therefore,  be 
analyzed.  In  the  years  1837-1839,  a  number  of  direct  trade  conven- 
tions held  in  the  South  Atlantic  states  gave  earnest  consideration 
to  direct  trade  with  Europe  as  a  remedy  for  Southern  decline. 
During  the  18405,  especially  the  latter  half  of  the  decade,  there 
was  much  discussion  of  the  practicability  and  desirability  of  de- 
veloping manufactures,  especially  cotton  manufactures.  The 
political  crisis  of  the  years  1847-1852  furnished  the  occasion  for 
considerable  consideration  of  the  economic  relations  of  the  sec- 
tions. During  the  18503,  direct  trade  with  Europe  was  almost 
constantly  a  subject  before  the  public.  Between  1852  and  1859, 


14        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [14 

a  series  of  Southern  commercial  conventions,  whose  original  ob- 
ject was  to  devise  measures  for  effecting  the  economic  regenera- 
tion of  the  section,  met  in  various  cities  of  the  South.  The  tariff 
question  was  not  dead  during  the  period  studied,  and  during  the 
18503  policies  of  state  and  local  protection  of  industry  were  pro- 
posed and  discussed.  The  agitation  of  the  late  fifties  in  behalf  of 
secession,  as  well  as  the  movement  for  the  revival  of  the  foreign 
slave  trade  of  the  same  period,  gave  evidence  of  discontent  with 
the  economic  position  of  the  South.  Finally,  every  phase  of  South- 
ern sectionalism  was  brought  out  by  the  actual  dissolution  of  the 
Union  and  the  necessity  of  inaugurating  Confederate  government- 
al policies.  Time  and  the  scope  of  this  work  have  not  permitted 
adequate  consideration  of  the  sectional  aspects  of  two  important 
problems  of  the  ante-bellum  South,  namely,  the  building  of  rail- 
roads, especially  into  the  Northwest  and  to  the  Pacific,  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  satisfactory  banking  and  credit  system.1  It  is 
not  believed  that  the  omissions  will  vitiate  the  conclusions  reached 
in  any  material  degree.  The  period  covered  by  this  study  has 
been  rather  arbitrarily  limited. 


"'Early  Projects  for  a  Pacific  Railroad"  was  the  subject  of  an  unpublished 
master's  thesis  of  the  author. 


CHAPTER  I 

AGITATION  IN  BEHALF  OF  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH 
EUROPE,  1837-1839 

In  colonial  days  the  exports  and  imports  of  the  Southern  col- 
onies compared  very  favorably  in  amount  with  those  of  the  North- 
ern; but  shortly  after  independence  from  Great  Britain  was 
achieved,  it  became  apparent  that  the  importing  business  of  the 
nation  was  being  concentrated  in  Northern  ports.  As  the  years 
went  by  the  concentration  became  more  and  more  pronounced. 
While  the  exports  of  the  staple  producing  states  grew  at  a  phe- 
nomenal rate,  the  value  of  the  imports  into  Southern  ports  re- 
mained almost  stationary  or  grew  very  slowly.  This  was  particu- 
larly true  in  the  case  of  the  Atlantic  ports.  In  the  case  of  New 
Orleans,  for  long  almost  the  sole  outlet  for  the  commerce  of  the 
rapidly  filling  Mississippi  valley,  there  was  early  in  the  last  cen- 
tufy^phenomenal  increase  in  both  exports  and  imports;  but  after 
about  1835  the  latter  increased  very  slowly,  while  the  former  con- 
tinued to  grow  at  the  same  remarkable  rate.  Prior  to  the  Civil 
War  the  imports  of  the  Northern  states  greatly  exceeded  their  ex- 
ports. In  the  Southern  states  the  reverse  was  the  case.  A  com- 
parison of  the  exports  from  all  Southern  ports  with  those  from  all 
Northern  ports  shows  that  after  about  1830  the  former  always 
exceeded,  and  sometimes  greatly  exceeded,  the  latter.  The  im- 
ports of  the  Southern  ports,  however,  were  only  a  fraction  of  the 
imports  of  Northern  ports,  and  became  proportionally  less  as  the 
years  went  by.1  If  the  growing  superiority  of  the  North  in  popu- 
lation be  remembered,  and  the  comparison  be  made  on  the  basis 
of  population,  the  disparity  is  still  striking.  It  indicates  that  either 
the  people  of  the  South  did  not  consume  their  proportionate  share 
of  the  nation's  imports,  or  that  Northern  merchants  imported 
largely  on  Southern  account,  or  both. 

A  study  of  the  growth  of  population  of  Northern  and  Southern 
seaports  likewise  reveals  a  growing  disparity  in  favor  of  the 
former.2  The  ante-bellum  South  had  no  large  and  growing  ports 
except  New  Orleans  and  Baltimore,  the  latter  of  which  was  on  the 
line  between  the  two  sections. 


^ee  Appendix,  Table  I. 
2See  Appendix,  Table  II. 


[15] 


l6        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1       [l6 

The  available  statistics  of  the  shipping  built  or  owned  in  the 
two  sections  again  reveals  a  disparity  in  favor  of  the  North  as 
great  or  greater  than  that  in  the  value  of  imports  or  the  popula- 
tion of  the  seaports.  If  the  comparison  be  limited  to  vessels  en- 
gaged in  the  foreign  trade,  it  is  even  more  to  the  advantage  of 
the  North.3  These  facts  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  foreign 
commerce  of  the  Southern  states  was  carried  largely  in  Northern 
or  foreign  vessels,  and  that  the  coasting  trade  of  the  South,  if 
large,  must  have  been  conducted  largely  in  Northern  vessels. 

The  comparative  growth  of  Northern  and  Southern  seaports, 
the  tendency  to  concentration  of  the  importing  business  of  the 
United  States  in  Northern  cities,  especially  New  York,  and  the 
disparity  between  the  shipping  industries  of  the  two  sections,  in 
short  the  "commercial  dependence"  of  the  South  upon  the  North, 
were  matters  which  received  considerable  attention  in  the  ante- 
bellum South,  not  only  from  citizens  of  the  seaports  themselves 
but  from  the  section  as  a  whole.  Southern  men  quite  generally 
looked  upon  commercial  dependence  as  an  evidence  of  the  failure 
of  the  South  to  prosper  as  it  should.  They  gave  consideration  to 
the  relation  of  commercial  dependence  to  the  comparatively  slow 
accumulation  of  mobile  capital  in  the  South  and  to  the  inadequacy 
of  credit  facilities,  because  of  which  they  were  handicapped  in 
their  efforts  to  construct  internal  improvements  and  to  develop 
the  varied  resources  of  the  section.  They  canvassed  commercial 
dependence  as  a  cause  for  the  slower  increase  of  population  in  the 
South  than  in  the  North — a  matter  of  much  concern  because  of 
its  bearing  upon  the  sectional  struggle  over  slavery.  The  causes 
of  commercial  dependence  were  sought,  therefore,  and  efforts 
were  made  to  devise  and  apply  remedies. 

The  whole  subject  was  first  thoroughly  discussed,  and  the  first 
efforts  made  to  effect  a  revolution  in  the  manner  of  conducting 
Southern  commerce,  by  a  number  of  direct  trade  conventions 
which  met  in  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  and  Virginia  in  1837,  1838, 
and  1839. 

The  direct  trade  convention  originated  in  Georgia.  While  the 
financial  crash  of  1837  deranged  the  currency  and  the  exchange 
and  credit  operations  of  the  country,  it  seems  not  to  have  affected 
the  old  South  as  disastrously  at  first  as  it  did  other  sections  of 

"See  Appendix,  Table  III. 


17]         AGITATION   IN   BEHALF  OF  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE  I"] 

the  Union.*  It  was  seized  upon  as  affording  a  good  opportunity 
for  attempting  to  effect  the  establishment  of  direct  trade  and  a 
change  in  the  method  of  marketing  cotton.  With  these  objects  in 
view,  William  Bearing  and  other  gentlemen,  of  Athens,  issued  a 
call  for  a  convention  to  meet  in  Augusta  in  October,  183 7.°  The 
call  stated  that  a  crisis  had  arrived  in  the  commercial  affairs  of 
the  South  and  Southwest,  "the  most  favorable  that  has  occurred 
since  the  formation  of  the  American  government,  to  attempt  a 
new  organization  of  our  commercial  relations  with  Europe."6  The 
first  Augusta  convention  was  followed  in  April  and  October,  1838, 
by  a  second  and  a  third  and,  in  April,  1839,  by  a  fourth,  in  Char- 
leston. 

Each  of  this  series  of  conventions  was  composed  of  from  one 
hundred  to  two  hundred  delegates,  elected  by  local  meetings.  The 
great  majority  in  each  case  was  from  Georgia  and  South  Caro- 
lina, but  there  were  scattering  representatives  from  North  Caro- 
lina, Tennessee,  Alabama,  and  Florida  Territory,  and  an  attempt 
was  made  to  enlist  as  many  Southern  states  as  possible.  Although 
the  state  rights,  anti-tariff  men  gave  tone  to  the  proceedings,  the 
conventions  were  bi-partisan  in  composition;  they  were  not  got  up 
for  partisan  purposes,  and  party  politics  played  a  minor  part  in 
their  deliberations.  Among  the  delegates  were  bankers,  merch- 
ants, and  planters,  as  well  as  men  active  in  politics.  The  lists  of 
delegates  included  such  well  known  names  as  Robert  Y.  Hayne, 
A.  P.  Hayne,  George  McDuffie,  James  Hamilton,  Ker  Boyce, 
James  Gadsden,  Colonel  Blanding,  F.  H.  Elmore,  H.  S.  Legare, 
J.  H.  Hammond,  J.  E.  and  J.  A.  Calhoun,  Chancellor  Harper,  and 
C.  G.  Memminger,  of  South  Carolina,  Thomas  Butler  King,  A.  H. 
Stephens,  George  W.  Crawford,  J.  M.  Berrien,  G.  B.  Lamar, 
Judge  A.  B.  Longstreet,  and  Joseph  H.  Lumpkin,  of  Georgia,  A.  J. 
Pickett,  of  Alabama,  and  Spencer  Jarnaghin,  of  Tennessee.  John 
C.  Calhoun  was  not  present  in  any  of  these  conventions,  but  their 
purposes  met  with  his  approval.7  The  presence  and  active  partici- 
pation of  such  men  are  sufficient  to  indicate  the  deep  interest  in  the 

'Charleston  Courier,  Oct.  7,  1837. 

*Niles'  Register,  LV,  43,  189.  The  delegates  of  the  third  Augusta  convention 
presented  William  Dearing  with  a  silver  cup  in  recognition  of  his  part  in  inaugu- 
rating the  direct  trade  conventions. 

"Charleston  Courier,  Aug.  14,  1837. 

'Calhoun  to  Sidney  Breese,  July  27,  1839,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 


l8        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1 86 1       [l8 

objects  of  the  conventions.  Numerous  local  meetings  and  the  ac- 
companying press  discussion  give  testimony  to  the  same  effect.  In 
addition  to  the  debates  and  resolutions  and  the  newspaper  com- 
ments, the  views,  objects,  and  plans  of  the  conventions  were  set 
forth  in  several  quite  able  addresses  and  reports.  The  report  from 
the  committee  of  twenty-one  of  the  first  convention  was  read  by 
George  McDuffie,  chairman.8  He  was  made  chairman  of  a  com- 
mittee to  address  the  people  of  the  South  and  Southwest  upon  the 
objects  of  the  convention,  and  wrote  the  address.9  At  the  second 
convention  the  report  of  the  general  committee  was  read  by  Robert 
Y.  Hayne,  chairman,  and  a  committee,  of  which  A.  B.  Longstreet 
was  appointed  chairman,  was  instructed  to  prepare  an  address  to 
the  people.10  At  the  Charleston  meeting,  Robert  Y.  Hayne  read  a 
report  upon  direct  trade,  which  he  had  prepared,  and  which  was 
adopted  by  the  convention;11  F.  H.  Elmore  read  a  report  from 
another  committee,  composed  chiefly  of  merchants  from  interior 
towns.12 

Three  delegates  from  Norfolk,  Virginia,  attended  the  second 
Augusta  convention  and  took  a  prominent  part  in  its  proceedings. 
As  a  result  of  growing  interest,  a  direct  trade  convention  was 
called  to  meet  in  Richmond  in  June,  1838.  This  meeting  was  fol- 
lowed by  another  in  Norfolk  in  November.  Besides  these  two 
large  conventions  there  were  a  number  of  more  local  gatherings 
which  discussed  the  same  subjects.  The  great  majority  of  the 
delegates  at  Richmond  and  Norfolk  were  from  Virginia,  but  sev- 
eral came  from  North  Carolina.  These  gatherings  were  bi-par- 
tisan  in  composition,  as  were  those  in  Georgia  and  South  Caro- 
lina, but  they  did  not  succeed  so  well  in  keeping  partisan  politics 
out  of  the  proceedings.  Among  the  delegates  were  such  prom- 
inent men  as  John  S.  Millson,  J.  M.  Botts,  James  Caskie,  Francis 
Mallory,  Edmund  Ruffin,  Myer  Myers,  and  W.  C.  Flournoy.  At 
Norfolk,  John  Tyler  presided.  These  conventions,  too,  left  sev- 

*CharIeston  Courier,  Oct.  24,  1837. 

•DeBow's  Review,  IV,  208  ff. 

"Report  is  in  Savannah  Daily  Republican,  April  6,  9,  19,  1838.  The  ad- 
dress is  in  the  Charleston  Mercury,  Aug.  n,  1838;  DeBow' s  Review,  XIII,  477- 
93;  N iles'  Register,  LV,  40  f. 

"DeBow,  Industrial  Resources  of  the  South  and  West,  III,  92-111. 

"DeBow's  Review,  IV,  493-502;  DeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  etc.,  Ill,  m- 
116. 


19]          AGITATION   IN   BEHALF   OF   DIRECT  TRADE   WITH   EUROPE  19 

eral  ably  written  reports,  notably,  the  report  of  the  committee  on 
commerce  of  the  Richmond  convention,13  a  report  prepared  and 
submitted  to  the  same  convention  by  Francis  Mallory  but  with- 
drawn because  of  the  opposition  it  encountered,14  and  the  report 
of  the  general  committee  of  the  Norfolk  convention,  read  by  John 
S.  Millson.15 

There  was  substantial  agreement  in  all  of  the  conventions  in 
regard  to  the  manner  in  which  Southern  commerce  was  con- 
ducted, the  evils  attendant  thereon,  and  the  benefits  to  follow  the 
establishment  of  direct  trade  with  Europe.  The  staple  growing 
states  were  described  as  being  in  a  "state  of  commercial  depen- 
dence, scarcely  less  reproachful  to  their  industry  and  enterprise 
than  it  is  incompatible  with  their  substantial  prosperity."16  What 
would  be  more  natural  than  that  those  who  furnished  the  nation's 
exports  should  also  receive  its  imports?  Yet,  while  the  South  fur- 
nished two-thirds  of  the  exports,  she  received  directly  only  one- 
tenth  of  the  imports  of  the  United  States.  Francis  Mallory  esti- 
mated that  nine-tenths  of  the  exports  went  directly  to  Europe, 
while  five-sevenths  of  the  imports  from  abroad  came  indirectly 
by  way  of  Northern  seaports.  The  direct  imports  of  Charleston 
were  said  to  have  amounted  to  several  millions  in  1807;  by  1833 
they  had  dwindled  to  one-half  million;  since  that  time  they  had 
gradually  increased,  but  were  still  insignificant.17  The  same  was 
said  to  be  true  of  Virginia.  At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  exports 
and  imports  had  been  equal;  from  that  time  to  1831  imports  had 
steadily  declined;  since  1831  there  had  been  some,  though  not 
marked,  improvement.18  Though  Southern  exports  went  directly 
to  Europe,  the  business  was  not  conducted  by  home  merchants, 
but  chiefly  by  agents  of  Northern  and  English  firms.  Southern 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  June  22,  1838. 

"Ibid.,  June  26,  1838;  June  19.  Mallory's  report  may  be  found  in  pamphlet 
form  also. 

"Ibid.,  Nov.  30,  1838.  In  addition  to  the  reports  already  mentioned,  were 
a  "Report  on  Manufactures"  and  a  "Supplementary  Report  on  Manufactures," 
both  adopted  by  the  Richmond  convention.  Ibid.,  June  26,  1838. 

"Charleston  Courier,  Oct.  24,  1837,  report  of  the  general  committee  of  the 
first  Augusta  convention. 

"Savannah  Daily  Republican,  April  7,  1838,  report  of  the  general  committee 
of  the  second  Augusta  convention. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  June  26,  1838,  Mallory's  report. 


2O        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  18401861      [2O 

seaports  were  described  as  mere  appendages  of  Northern  sea- 
ports, "places  where  their  agents  and  factors  do  business,  and 
who,  having  but  little  local  interest,  withdraw  from  them  after  a 
few  years  residence,  with  all  their  gains,  to  swell  the  wealth  of 
the  place  of  their  early  affection  and  attachment."19  In  Virginia, 
Northern  steamboats  often  went  up  the  rivers  buying  and  selling 
directly  to  the  farmers,  the  lumbermen,  and  the  country  mer- 
chants; the  cargoes  were  paid  for  by  bills  on  New  York,  and  the 
money  never  entered  Virginia.  Interior  merchants  purchased  their 
stocks  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  or  Baltimore  without  the  inter- 
vention of  jobbers  in  Southern  ports.20 

The  profits  Northern  merchants  and  shippers  made  from  con- 
ducting Southern  commerce  were  believed  to  be  very  great  and  to 
account  in  large  measure  for  the  prosperity  of  Northern  cities, 
while  the  loss  of  those  profits  explained  the  impoverishment  of  the 
cities  of  the  South.  The  address  issued  by  the  second  Augusta 
convention,  after  estimating  at  $630,000,000  the  duties  paid  by 
the  Southern  states  since  the  establishment  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  continued: 

If  we  suppose  the  value  of  the  goods  upon  which  the  six  hun- 
dred and  thirty  millions  of  duties  were  levied,  to  have  been  but 
four  times  the  value  of  the  duties,  it  amounted  to  $2,500,000,000. 
How  were  these  goods  brought  to  this  country  and  distributed? 
The  northern  merchant  has  come  hither  and  bought  from  the 
southern  planter  produce  of  equal  value,  abating  from  the  price 
all  the  expenses,  direct  and  incidental,  of  transportation.  He  has 
insured  them  in  northern  offices,  and  shipped  them  abroad  in  his 
own  vessels — exchanged  them  at  a  small  profit  for  foreign  merchan- 
dise— brought  it  home — paid  one-fourth  its  value  to  the  govern- 
ment— added  that  amount  and  all  the  expenses  of  importation, 
and  fifteen  to  twenty  per  cent,  for  his  profits,  to  the  price,  and 
exposed  it  for  sale.  The  southern  merchant  has  now  gone  to  him 
— lingered  the  summer  through  at  heavy  expense — bought  a  por- 
tion of  the  goods,  reshipped  them  in  northern  vessels  to  southern 
ports — added  twenty-five  per  cent,  more  to  the  price,  to  cover  his 
expenses  and  profits — and  sold  them  to  the  southern  planter.  All 
the  disbursements  made  in  this  process,  save  such  as  are  made 
abroad,  are  among  northern  men;  all  the  profits,  save  the  south- 
ern merchant's,  are  made  by  northern  men  .  .  .  Every  item  in  the 
endless  catalogue  of  charges,  except  the  government  dues,  may  be 
considered  a  voluntary  tribute  from  the  citizens  of  the  south  to 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  June  26,  1838,  Mallory's  report. 


21  ]          AGITATION   IN   BEHALF   OF  DIRECT  TRADE   WITH   EUROPE  21 

their  brethren  of  the  north;  for  they  would  all  have  gone  to  our 
own  people,  had  we  done  our  own  exporting  and  importing.21 

At  Charleston,  Robert  Y.  Hayne  quoted  a  report  of  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Alabama  Legislature  in  which  it  was  estimated  that 
over  one-third  the  price  of  cotton  went  to  New  York  agents  and 
shippers.  Hayne  himself  was  content  to  put  the  tolls  at  10  or  15 
per  cent.22  George  McDuffie  thought  the  "voluntary  tribute"  paid 
annually  to  the  North  for  carrying  Southern  commerce  amounted 
to  $io,ooo,ooo.23  A  Virginia  delegate  said  the  state  could  save 
$1,000,000  annually  by  importing  directly.24  But  this  direct  an- 
nual drain  was  not  the  only  loss  occasioned  the  Southern  people; 
there  were  also  the  "consequential  losses,"  that  is,  the  capital 
which  would  have  accumulated  had  the  South  conducted  her  own 
commerce.  Commercial  dependence  had  operated  to  prevent  the 
accumulation  of  capital  in  the  South,  and  the  deficiency  of  capital 
had  handicapped  enterprise. 

The  greatness  of  New  York  City  was  pictured — all  said  to  have 
been  built  upon  Southern  staples  and  Southern  trade.  "You  hold 
the  element,"  ran  the  address  of  one  of  these  conventions,  "from 
which  he  derives  his  strength,  and  you  have  only  to  withdraw  it 
to  make  him  as  subservient  to  you,  as  you  now  are  to  him.  You 
have  but  to  speak  the  word,  and  his  empire  is  transferred  to  your 
own  soil,  and  his  sovereignty  to  the  sons  of  that  soil."25  But  the 
benefits  were  not  confined  to  New  York;  the  virtual  monopoly  of 
Southern  commerce  had  "either  directly  or  indirectly  made  the 
whole  of  the  North  and  Northwest  what  they  are,"  according  to 
the  call  of  the  first  Augusta  convention.26  Because  of  it,  "the  one 
people  has  risen  like  the  rocket,  and  the  other  has  fallen  like  its 
stick — their  positions  must  have  been  reversed,  if  the  southern 
people  had  maintained  their  foreign  trade."27  Glowing  descrip- 
tions were  given  of  the  prosperity  of  Southern  states  and  cities 
after  direct  trade  should  be  restored.  Were  direct  trade  estab- 
lished, according  to  the  address  calling  the  second  Augusta  con- 
vention, "there  would  be  an  end  to  the  unequal  barter  of  which 

"Niles'  Register,  LV,  41. 

"DeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  III,  93. 

"Charleston  Courier,  Oct.  24,  1837,  report,  first  Augusta  convention. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  June  15,  1838. 

^Nilei  Register,  LV,  43,  second  Augusta  convention. 

"Charleston  Courier,  Aug.  14,  1837. 

"Niles'  Register,  LV,  42. 


22        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861       [22 

we  have  spoken.  The  doleful  cry  for  northern  funds  would  be 
hushed.  The  speculators  upon  southern  distress  would  cease.  The 
disorders  of  the  currency  would  be  healed.  The  relation  of  the 
commercial  agency  would  be  changed.  They  would  be  acquaint- 
ances and  friends,  identical  in  feeling  and  interest;  enjoying 
mutual  confidence,  and  interchanging  mutual  favors  ....  The 
fountain  and  the  streams  of  commerce  lying  all  within  our  land, 
would  enrich  it  to  an  extent  that  none  can  foresee.  Our  works 
of  internal  improvement  would  receive  a  new  and  ever-accelerat- 
ing impetus.  Our  drooping  cities  would  be  revived — our  creeping 
commerce  winged;  and  all  the  blessings,  physical,  moral,  and  in- 
tellectual, which  invariably  accompany  affluence  and  independ- 
ence, would  be  ours."28 

In  regard  to  the  causes  for  the  "decline"  of  the  shipping  and 
the  import  trade  of  Southern  ports,  the  conventions  exhibited  dif- 
ferences of  opinion.  First,  there  was  the  view  that  for  many  years 
the  North  had  possessed  great  advantages  over  the  South  for  these 
lines  of  business  by  reason  of  its  superior  wealth  and  larger  ac- 
cumulations of  capital.  Not  only  must  ship  owners  and  importers 
be  men  of  large  capital,  but  they  must  have  the  backing  of 
wealthy  communities. 

And  men  of  the  South  Carolina  school,  the  followers  of  Calhoun 
and  McDuffie,  who  predominated  in  the  Augusta  and  Charleston 
conventions,  were  ready  with  explanations  for  the  more  rapid  ac- 
cumulation of  capital  in  the  North  than  in  the  South.  It  was,  they 
said,  because  of  the  unequal  operation  of  the  Federal  government. 
The  tariffs  had  long  enriched  the  manufacturing  sections  at  the 
expense  of  the  agricultural.  Furthermore,  while  the  people  of  the 
South  had  paid  their  proportionate  share  of  the  Federal  revenues, 
these  revenues  had  been  disbursed  chiefly  in  the  Northern  cities, 
and  this  process,  going  on  year  after  year,  had  transferred  a  stag- 
gering total  from  the  one  section  to  the  other.  A  minority  report 
in  the  Richmond  convention  rehearsed  the  old  story  of  the  as- 
sumption of  the  state  debts  by  the  Federal  government  and  the 
refunding  of  the  national  debt  carried  out  under  the  guidance  of 
Alexander  Hamilton.  The  refunded  debt  had  been  distributed  be- 
tween the  North  and  South  in  the  ratio  of  three  to  one,  and, 
because  of  this  inequality  of  distribution,  had  acted  as  a  mortgage 

'  Regist'er,  LV,  43.   Cf.   Richmond  Enquirer,  June  26,  1838. 


23]          AGITATION    IN   BEHALF   OF  DIRECT  TRADE   WITH   EUROPE  23 

of  the  one  section  upon  the  other,  great  sums  having  been  trans- 
ferred from  the  South  to  the  North  in  the  form  of  interest  paid 
to  Northern  bond  holders  from  the  common  treasury.29  It  was 
claimed,  also,  by  men  in  these  conventions,  that  for  long  the  funds 
of  the  Federal  government  had  been  deposited  almost  altogether 
in  Northern  banks,  thus  giving  Northern  business  men  a  decided 
advantage  over  Southern  in  the  ability  to  secure  financial  assist- 
ance. Those  who  held  these  views  of  the  causes  of  Southern  de- 
cline saw  basis  for  hope  for  revival  in  the  gradual  reduction  of  the 
tariff,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  Compromise  Tariff  law  of 
1833,  the  recent  extinguishment  of  the  national  debt,  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  United  States  Bank,  and  the  evidence  of  a  new  policy 
in  distributing  deposits  of  the  public  funds. 

Another  alleged  cause  for  Southern  commercial  dependence, 
closely  related  to  the  one  just  mentioned,  was  the  inadequacy  of 
credit  facilities.  An  examination,  however  cursory,  of  business 
methods  in  the  South  in  that  period  makes  it  clear  that  a  success- 
ful importing  firm  would  have  to  command  very  great  resources 
of  capital  or  credit  or  both.  It  was  proverbial  that  the  planters 
lived  each  year  upon  the  prospective  income  from  the  next  year's 
crop.  The  country  merchants,  who  extended  them  long  credit, 
could  not  buy,  therefore,  except  on  long  time.  Importers,  who 
bought  on  sixty  or  ninety  days  time,  had  to  sell  to  the  merchants 
upon  from  six  to  twelve  or  sixteen  months.  Country  merchants 
were  sometimes  unwilling  to  give  negotiable  notes;  they  consid- 
ered a  request  to  do  so  a  reflection  upon  their  business  integrity.30 
Southern  importers  and  jobbers  did  not,  unaided,  possess  the 
means,  and  Southern  banks  were  unable  to  lend  them  sufficient 
support,  to  enable  them  to  extend  to  retail  merchants  the  long 
credits  which  the  latter  received  in  the  North. 

A  correspondent  of  the  Charleston  Courier  attributed  the  loss 
of  foreign  trade  to  the  fact  that  country  merchants  began  to  buy 
of  Northern  jobbers  because  of  the  longer  credits  obtained.31 
Robert  Y.  Hayne  enumerated  long  credits  as  one  of  the  causes  of 
the  decline  of  Southern  commerce.32  McDuffie  said  he  confidently 

SBRichmond  Enquirer,  June  26,  1838,  Mallory's  report. 
**Ibid.,  June  22,  1838,  remarks  of  Mr.  James  and  Mr.  Caskie;  June  26,  1838, 
Mallory's  report. 
"Oct.  17,  1837. 
82DeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  III,  98. 


24        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1       [24 

believed  that,  if  the  planters  would  "adopt  the  system  of  expend- 
ing, in  the  current  year,  the  income  of  the  year  preceding  .... 
it  would  dispense  with  one-half  of  the  capital  that  would  otherwise 
be  necessary  for  carrying  on  our  foreign  commerce  by  a  system  of 
direct  importation."33  One  of  the  questions  dividing  public  opinion 
in  Virginia  in  that  period  was  the  policy  of  authorizing  an  increase 
of  bank  capital  in  the  state.  It  was  the  subject  of  animated  de- 
bates in  both  the  Richmond  and  the  Norfolk  conventions.  Those 
favoring  the  increase  thought  the  unwise  policy  of  the  legislature 
in  refusing  the  authorization  largely  responsible  for  the  decline  of 
direct  trade  in  Virginia. 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  men  of  these  conventions  that  they 
recognized  other  causes  for  Southern  commercial  dependence 
than  the  action  or  non-action  of  the  Federal  and  state  govern- 
ments. They  recognized  that  agriculture  had  in  the  past  proved 
more  attractive  to  capital  than  the  shipping  or  mercantile  business; 
land  and  negroes  had  been  considered  the  best  investments.  The 
existence  of  a  prejudice  against  other  pursuits  than  agriculture  and 
the  professions  was  admitted.  Some  were  willing  to  credit  the  peo- 
ple of  the  North  with  habits  of  industry  not  possessed  by  their  own 
people  and  with  superior  commercial  enterprise;  they  spoke  of  the 
"voluntary  tribute"  which  the  South  paid  the  North.  The  able  re- 
port of  the  general  committee  of  the  Norfolk  convention,  read  by 
John  S.  Millson,  traced  the  decline  of  Virginia's  foreign  commerce 
to  a  very  early  date.  Before  the  Revolution,  the  report  said,  bus- 
iness was  conducted  by  British  capitalists,  and  even  then  the  resi- 
dent merchants  were  foreigners.  At  the  time  of  the  Revolution, 
British  capital  was  withdrawn.  True,  the  same  thing  happened  in 
the  North,  but  to  a  less  degree,  and  the  North  was  better  pre- 
pared to  take  the  place  left  by  the  British.  Furthermore,  agricul- 
ture became  unprofitable  in  the  North  at  an  earlier  day  than  in  the 
South,  and  capital  had  been  diverted  to  other  industries.  The 
committee  further  candidly  admitted  that  "the  decline  of  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  our  foreign  import  trade  may  be  accounted 
for  in  the  fact  that  we  now  derive  from  the  Northern  states 
many  of  those  articles  that  we  formerly  imported  from  abroad." 
Such  a  diversion  of  trade  was  not  a  subject  for  regret.34  A  com- 
mittee in  the  Charleston  convention  likewise  reported  that  the 

"DeBotv's  Review,  IV,  221. 
"Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  30,  1838. 


25]          AGITATION   IN   BEHALF   OF   DIRECT  TRADE   WITH   EUROPE  25 

consumption  of  domestic  goods  had  increased  greatly,  was  still  in- 
creasing, and  was  estimated  by  merchants  to  extend  already  to 
one-third  of  the  whole  consumption.  The  committee  believed, 
however,  that  the  quantity  of  foreign  goods  consumed  in  the  South 
was  sufficient  to  justify  merchants  in  Southern  seaports  embarking 
in  the  importing  business  and  to  enable  them  to  compete  with 
Northern  importers,  who,  of  course,  supplied  a  larger  demand.35 

It  was  generally  denied  that  Northern  seaports  possessed  any 
natural  or  physical  advantages  over  Southern  seaports  for  con- 
ducting foreign  commerce.  The  direct  course  of  trade  was  the 
natural  course,  and  the  indirect  the  unnatural.  Direct  trade  would 
save  one  set  of  jobbers'  profits,  the  cost  of  shipping  coastwise,  the 
difference  between  the  discount  of  Southern  notes  in  New  York 
and  Charleston  (or  the  cost  of  whatever  other  mode  of  payment 
was  employed),  and  the  expenses  retail  merchants  incurred  in  go- 
ing North  to  lay  in  their  stocks.  Southern  harbors  were  said  to  be 
as  good  as  Northern.  However  that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that 
ocean  going  vessels  entered  Southern  harbors  to  receive  their  ex- 
ports. These  ships  often  came  in  ballast,  and,  it  was  reasonably 
argued,  would  be  willing  to  carry  imports  at  low  freights.  Ship- 
ping was  considered  adequate,  though  there  was  recognition  that 
regular  packet  lines  were  needed.36  The  South  was  said  to  have 
timber  for  ship-building;  but,  in  the  thirties,  not  much  was  said 
about  the  desirability  of  promoting  ship-building  or  ship-owning: 
the  big  object  was  to  save  the  "importers'  profits."  Now  and  then 
someone  suggested  that  the  importing  business  in  Southern  cities 
was  rendered  precarious  by  visits  of  yellow,  or  "strangers',"  fever; 
but  residents  of  the  South  were  generally  ready  to  defend  their 
coast  cities  against  the  prevalent  belief  that  they  were  unhealthy.37 

Various  plans  and  measures  were  suggested  for  promoting 
direct  importations  of  foreign  goods.  Some  were  intended  to  over- 
come the  obstacle  to  direct  trade  which  lay  in  the  lack  of  mercan- 

**DeBow's  Review,  IV,  495,  Elmore's  report. 

MIt  is  a  rather  significant  commentary,  however,  that  much  of  the  import 
trade  of  Charleston  was  made  by  her  own  merchants  through  New  York,  the 
goods  being  transhipped  there.  DeBow's  Review,  IV,  499. 

MDeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  III,  98;  Buckingham,  Slave  States  of  Amer- 
ica, I,  67  ff.  In  1838,  Charleston  experienced  the  most  costly  epidemic  of  yellow 
fever  of  her  history  to  that  time.  The  severity  of  the  epidemic  was  partly  due 
to  the  conditions  resulting  from  the  great  fire  earlier  in  the  same  year.  Charleston 
Mercury,  Sept.  13,  Oct.  26,  1838;  Niles'  Register,  LV,  52,  161. 


26        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1       [26 

tile  houses  with  sufficient  capital  to  enable  them  to  embark  in  the 
importing  business.  The  first  Augusta  convention  took  the  view 
that,  while  individual  merchants  were  not  possessed  of  resources 
necessary,  the  requisite  capital  could  be  got  together  by  associa- 
tions of  individuals,  and  to  that  end  it  appointed  a  committee  to 
memorialize  the  state  legislatures  in  behalf  of  limited  co-partner- 
ship laws.  In  response  to  the  committee's  memorials  the  legisla- 
tures of  Virginia,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Tennessee, 
and  Florida  Territory  enacted  the  desired  legislation,  and  subse- 
quent conventions  urged  men  of  means  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
opportunity  thus  afforded.38  The  opinion  was  expressed  that  there 
was  an  overproduction  of  cotton  in  the  South,  and  that  planters 
could  profitably  invest  a  portion  of  the  proceeds  of  their  crops 
otherwise  than  in  land  and  negroes.  If  for  a  few  years  the  plant- 
ers would  apply  one-half  their  net  income  to  commerce,  abundant 
capital  would  be  supplied  to  conduct  the  whole  foreign  com- 
merce.39 This  suggestion,  however,  could  not  carry  great  weight, 
for,  though  subject  to  fluctuation,  it  was  not  until  1839  that  there 
was  a  marked  decline  in  cotton  prices,  and  the  average  for  the 
years  1835  to  1839  was  fourteen  cents,  a  higher  average  than  that 
of  any  equal  period  since  1820  to  1824.*°  The  question  of  capital, 
it  was  considered,  would  be  a  serious  one  only  while  the  revolution 
in  trade  was  being  effected,  for,  once  established,  the  profits  of 
direct  importations  would  supply  the  capital  requisite  for  their 
continuance.41 

Other  recommendations  of  the  direct  trade  conventions  dealt 
with  the  great  obstacle  to  direct  trade  which  lay  in  the  inadequacy 
of  credit  facilities  in  the  South.  The  second  Augusta  convention 
was  especially  detailed  in  its  recommendations.  It  requested 
banks  to  form  European  connections  that  they  might  be  able  to 
assist  importers  with  letters  of  credit.  It  recommended  that  the 
banks  in  the  seaports  discount  paper  from  the  interior  for  the 

"Savannah  Daily  Republican,  April  6,  10,  1838;  Niles'  Register,  LV,  43,  189. 
The  Charleston  convention  adopted  a  resolution  directing  the  chairman  to  ap- 
point and  designate  the  spheres  of  committees  whose  duty  it  should  be  to  call 
meetings  of  the  people  and  recommend  to  them  to  invest  a  portion  of  their  sur- 
plus capital  in  limited  partnerships  with  merchants  in  trading  centers  and  towns 
of  their  respective  states.  Charleston  Courier,  April  19,  1839. 

"Ibid.,  Oct.  24,  1837;  DeBow's  Review,  IV,  222. 

40Donnell,  E.  J.,  History  of  Cotton,  passim. 

"Savannah  Daily  Republican,  April  10,  1838. 


2j]          AGITATION    IN   BEHALF   OF   DIRECT  TRADE   WITH   EUROPE  If 

importing  merchants — paper  for  longer  periods  than  six  months  as 
well  as  for  shorter  periods.  The  banks  of  the  interior  were  re- 
quested to  cooperate  by  collecting  and  remitting  the  proceeds  of 
such  paper  to  the  coast  with  as  little  delay  as  possible.  "It  is  not 
to  be  concealed  that  without  the  aid  and  support  of  the  banks,  the 
difficulties  in  our  way  will  be  greatly  multiplied.  It  will  depend 
upon  them,  in  great  measure,  to  determine  the  fate  of  our  great 
measure."42  The  banks  had  suspended  specie  payment  in  May, 
1837,  and  were  beset  with  great  difficulties.  The  convention  de- 
vised a  plan  for  equalizing  the  domestic  exchanges  and  keeping  up 
the  credit  of  the  banks  during  the  period  of  suspension.  In  sub- 
stance the  plan  was  that  the  banks  of  the  principal  Southern  cities 
receive  each  other's  notes  and  adopt  some  sort  of  a  clearing  house 
system,  and  that  other  banks  maintain  the  value  of  their  notes  and 
keep  down  the  rates  of  exchange  by  redeeming  their  notes  at  the 
seaports.  A  committee  was  appointed  to  urge  the  banks  to  adopt 
the  plan.43  The  plan  had  good  points,  but  was  too  complicated  to 
be  adopted  at  the  time.  The  banks  did  make  a  more  or  less  con- 
certed effort  to  resume  specie  payments  in  1838,  but  after  a  few 
months  were  again  forced  to  suspend,  in  October,  1839.  The  Vir- 
ginia conventions  contented  themselves,  after  hot  discussions,  with 
passing  resolutions  asking  the  legislatures  of  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  to  authorize  increases  of  banking  capital.44 

Many  other  suggestions  designed  to  promote  direct  importa- 
tions were  made.  Individual  citizens  were  urged  to  be  more  enter- 
prising. It  was  declared  a  sacred  duty  to  buy  of  those  merchants  who 
traded  directly  in  preference  to  those  who  bought  foreign  goods 
from  Northern  jobbers.  Interior  merchants  were  requested  not  to 
go  North  for  their  stocks  until  they  had  investigated  the  possibil- 
ities of  making  their  purchases  in  their  own  seaports.  A  local  Vir- 
ginia convention,  in  1838,  recommended  the  organization  of  an  as- 
sociation of  retail  merchants  pledged  to  deal,  after  September  I, 
1839,  with  the  importing  merchants  of  Virginia  cities  only,  "pro- 
vided those  merchants  would  sell  as  cheaply  as  the  Northern  mer- 
chants;" and  sixty  or  seventy  citizens  actually  signed  a  pledge  not 

"Savannah  Daily  Republican,  April  10,   1838. 
"Ibid.,  April  6,  1838. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  June   19,  Nov.  23,   1838.    These  states  did  not  have 
free  banking  laws  at  that  time. 


28        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861      [28 

to  patronize  any  merchant  who  would  not  join  the  association.45 
The  pledge  system  was  advocated  in  the  Norfolk  convention,  but 
the  convention  refused  to  recommend  it.46  Complaint  was  made 
that  the  tax  laws  of  the  states  descriminated  against  commercial 
capital  in  favor  of  land  and  slaves.47  Some  Southern  states  and 
cities  taxed  sales;  port  and  wharf  charges  and  fees  were  said  to  be 
too  high.48  The  Charleston  convention  adopted  a  resolution  re- 
questing the  state  legislatures  to  repeal  discriminatory  taxes.49 
A  motion  introduced  at  Norfolk  to  ask  the  Legislature  of  Virginia 
to  exempt  direct  imports  from  taxation  was  defeated.50  The 
prejudices  of  the  people  against  mercantile  pursuits  were  de- 
plored: "The  commercial  class  must  be  elevated  in  public  opinion 
to  the  rank  in  society  which  properly  belongs  to  it."  It  was 
recognized  as  an  evil  that  the  great  majority  of  the  merchants, 
commission  merchants,  and  factors  in  all  the  seaport  cities  of  the 
South  (and  interior  towns  too,  for  that  matter)  were  either 
Northerners  or  naturalized  citizens.  Commercial  education  was 
recommended  to  train  Southern  youth  to  enter  the  field.  Robert 
Y.  Hayne  advanced  to  his  son,  William  C.,  the  capital  necessary 
to  enter  into  a  partnership  with  one  of  the  old  importers  of  Char- 
leston. His  purpose,  he  wrote,  was  to  "try  what  can  be  done  to 
rear  up  a  young  brood  of  Carolina  merchants,  which  I  believe  to 
be  indispensable  to  put  our  Southern  America  on  a  right  foot- 
ing."51 Manufacturers  and  exporters  of  foreign  countries  were 
asked  to  establish  agencies  in  Southern  cities  for  selling  their 
goods,.as  they  had  done  in  New  York  and  other  Northern  seaports. 
The  Norfolk  convention  considered  this  quite  important;  it  ap- 
pointed a  committee  of  seven  to  get  in  communication  with 
European  firms.52 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  13,  1838,  account  of  a  meeting  in  Elizabeth  City 
County,  Oct.  6,  1838. 

"Ibid.,  Nov.  20,  1838. 

"Charleston  Courier,  April  17,  1839,  "Report  on  the  Taxation  of  Commer- 
cial Capital,"  submitted  by  Mitchell  King  in  the  Charleston  convention. 

"DeBow's  Review,  IV,  498. 

"Charleston  Courier,  April  19,  1839. 

""Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  23,  1838. 

"Hayne  to  J.  H.  Hammond,  Jan.  18,  1839,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 

"DeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  III,  loo;  Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  20,  30, 
1838.  Early  in  1839,  George  McDuffie  was  in  England  in  the  interest  of  a  plan 
of  his  own  "to  form  associations  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  planters  to  buy  directly 


29]         AGITATION   IN   BEHALF  OF  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH   EUROPE  29 

The  direct  trade  movement  of  these  years  was  very  closely  re- 
lated to  efforts  being  made  in  the  South  Atlantic  states  to  es- 
tablish connections  by  railroads  or  canals  with  the  Ohio  valley. 
South  Carolinians  were  the  chief  promoters  of  a  great  project, 
which  ultimately  had  to  be  abandoned,  to  build  the  "Louisville, 
Cincinnati,  and  Charleston  Railroad."63  The  State  of  Georgia  had 
undertaken  the  construction  of  a  trunk  line,  the  Western  and  At- 
lantic, from  Atlanta  to  the  Tennessee  river.84  Virginia  had  chart- 
ered the  James  River  and  Kanawha  Canal  Company,  which,  as 
the  name  indicates,  was  intended  to  provide  continuous  water 
communication  between  the  seaboard  and  the  Ohio.65  All  of  the 
direct  trade  conventions  very  heartily  endorsed  these  projects  for 
connecting  the  South  and  West  as  most  promising  measures  for 
securing  direct  trade.  The  West  sold  to  the  South,  it  was  said;  if 
it  could  also  buy  in  the  South,  such  a  demand  for  goods  would  be 
created  in  Southern  seaports  that  there  could  no  longer  be  any 
question  of  their  ability  to  import  directly.  "WTe  must  contend 
for  the  commerce  of  the  West,"  read  Mallory's  report,  "the  sec- 
tion that  gets  that  commerce  will  get  the  commerce  of  the  coun- 
try." A  resolution  adopted  by  the  Norfolk  convention  declared 
internal  improvements  to  be  the  foundation  cf  an  import  trade.56 
The  general  committee  of  the  Second  Augusta  convention  said 
that  direct  trade  was  inseparably  connected  with  the  extension  of 
intercourse  to  the  West.  "And  when  the  great  West  shall  find  a 
market  and  receive  their  supplies  through  the  seaports  of  the 
South,  a  demand  will  be  furnished,  the  extent  and  value  of  which 
cannot  be  too  largely  estimated."57  Calhoun,  who  took  a  deep  in- 
terest in  both  projects,  believed  that  direct  trade  could  not  be  es- 


from  English  manufacturers  without  commissions  or  profits  to  agents,  factors, 
or  merchants  except  a  small  commission  to  Liverpool  houses  selected  to  sell  the 
planters'  cotton  and  send  their  orders  to  the  manufacturers."  He  believed  the 
planters  could  save  25  per  cent  upon  their  purchases  in  this  way.  McDuffie  to 
J.  H.  Hammond,  March  31,  1839  (Manchester,  England),  J.H.Hammond  Papers. 

*3This  project  is  discussed  at  length  in  U.  B.  Phillips,  History  of  Transpor- 
tation in  the  Eastern  Cotton  Belt,  ch.  IV;  and  T.  D.  Jervey,  Robert  Y.  Hayne . 
and  His  Times. 

"Phillips  op.  cit.,  ch.  VII. 

"Ambler,  Sectionalism  in  Virginia,  from  1776  to!861,  p.  182. 

""Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  20,  23,  1838. 

"Savannah  Republican,  April  9,  1838. 


3O        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861       [30 

tablished  until  railroads  had  been  extended  to  the  West.58  On 
the  other  hand,  discussion  of  the  establishment  of  direct  trade 
with  Europe  would  stimulate  interest  in  projects  for  connecting 
the  seaboard  and  the  Ohio  valley.  Many  of  the  members  of  the 
direct  trade  conventions  were  closely  associated  with  the  internal 
improvement  projects,  and,  though  it  would  be  inaccurate  to  say 
that  the  former  were  got  up  to  give  impetus  to  the  latter,  that 
was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  objects  of  the  conventions.  The  rela- 
tion was  made  very  clear  in  the  message  of  Mayor  Pinckney,  of 
Charleston,  August,  1838.  During  the  previous  year,  he  said, 
Charleston  had  held  meetings,  "giving  a  decided  impetus  to  those 
great  enterprises,  the  Cincinnati  railroad  and  a  direct  trade  with 
Europe,  of  which  the  latter  will  supply  the  former  with  its  life 
blood,  and  of  which  the  united  operation  will  assuredly  achieve 
the  commercial  independence  of  the  South,  and,  with  it,  the  per- 
manent prosperity  of  our  beloved  city."59 

Although  the  money  panic  of  1837  was  the  occasion  for  the 
convening  of  conventions  which  proposed  to  attempt  to  change  the 
course  of  Southern  trade,  the  movement  cannot  be  considered  the 
outgrowth  of  depressed  economic  conditions.  In  1837  and  1838, 
it  was  believed  that  business  had  received  only  a  temporary,  al- 
though sharp,  check,  and  that  enterprise  would  soon  be  in  full 
swing  once  more.  As  were  the  rapid  building  of  railroads,  canals, 
and  turnpikes,  the  direct  trade  movement  was  a  manifestation  of 
the  spirit  of  progress  and  enterprise  which  had  seized  upon  East, 
West,  and  South  alike.  The  movement  came  to  a  temporary  close 
when  general  stagnation  of  business  settled  upon  the  country  in 
1839  and  continued  for  several  years  thereafter.60 

It  is  noteworthy  that  these  direct  trade  conventions  were  con- 
cerned almost  exclusively  with  economic  conditions  and  means  for 
improving  them.  The  slavery  question,  which  was  being  given 
considerable  prominence  about  this  time  both  in  Congress  and  out 

MCalhoun  to  Sidney  Breese,  July  27,  1839:  to  James  Edward  Calhoun, 
Nov.  I,  1841,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 

""Report;  Containing  a  Review  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  City  Authorities 
from  the  4th  of  Sept.,  1837.  By  Henry  L.  Pinckney,  Mayor. 

60The  Charleston  convention  adjourned  to  meet  in  Macon,  Georgia,  in  May, 
1840;  the  meeting  did  not  occur.  The  Norfolk  convention  arranged  for  another 
to  meet  in  Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  in  November,  1839;  there  is  no  record  of 
the  meeting  of  the  convention. 


3l]          AGITATION    IN    BEHALF   OF   DIRECT  TRADE   WITH   EUROPE  3! 

by  reason  of  the  debates  in  Congress  upon  the  exclusion  of  ab- 
olition literature  from  the  mails  and  the  treatment  of  abolition 
petitions  in  Congress,  was  rarely  mentioned.  A  decade  later  no 
direct  trade  convention  could  be  held,  no  plan  for  achieving 
commercial  independence  proposed,  nor,  for  that  matter,  for  erect- 
ing a  cotton  mill,  building  a  railroad,  opening  a  mine,  or  in  any 
wa;/  promoting  the  material  progress  of  the  South,  without  con- 
sideration of,  or  due  advertance  to,  its  relation  to  the  sectional 
struggle  over  slavery  and  the  extension  thereof.  The  argument 
would  then  without  fail  be  advanced  that  the  South  must  develop 
her  strength  and  resources  and  achieve  commercial  and  industrial 
independence  in  order  to  be  prepared  to  defend  her  rights  and 
honor  in  the  Union,  or,  if  worst  came  to  worst,  her  independence 
out  of  it.  George  McDuffie  did  indeed  allude  to  the  existence  of 
causes,  tariff  and  slavery,  which  made  the  dismemberment  of  the 
confederacy  "one  of  the  possible  contingencies  for  which  it  is  the 
part  of  wisdom  to  provide";61  but  as  yet  such  considerations  were 
very  infrequently  advanced,  at  least  in  public.  The  direct  trade 
conventions  of  the  thirties  were  in  the  main  what  they  purported 
to  be,  namely,  bona  fide  efforts  on  the  part  of  Southern  men  to 
promote  the  prosperity  and  progress  of  their  states  and  section 
and,  particularly,  their  seaports. 

Several  reasons  may  be  advanced  to  explain  the  comparatively 
little  interest  displayed  in  the  direct  trade  movement  outside  the 
three  states  of  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  and  Virginia.  North 
Carolina  had  no  seaport  which  was  considered  to  have  the  requi- 
site natural  advantages  for  becoming  a  great  Southern  emporium. 
Most  of  her  exports  and  imports  were  made  by  way  of  Virginia 
and  South  Carolina.  Her  population  was  conservative  and  com- 
paratively devoid  of  state  pride.  Alabama  and  Louisiana  had 
seaports  in  Mobile  and  New  Orleans.  Both  states  were  young, 
and  were  growing  rapidly  in  population.  Their  agriculture  had 
been  prosperous.  Just  before  the  financial  panic  of  1837,  both 
had  enjoyed  several  years  of  speculative  prosperity,  which  had 
been  fully  shared  by  Mobile  and  New  Orleans.  The  rapidly  grow- 
ing population  of  the  two  towns  consisted  largely  of  immigrants 
from  the  North  of  Europe;  civic  pride  had  not  yet  developed.  The 
crash  of  1837  was  more  severe  in  the  Southwest  than  in  the  older 

"De Bow's  Review,  IV,  219. 


32        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861      |j2 

Southern  states,  and  the  time  was  not  auspicious  for  interest  in 
any  new  movements. 

The  direct  trade  conventions  accomplished  no  tangible  results 
in  the  way  of  changing  the  course  of  Southern  commerce.  They 
afford  evidence  of  discontent  in  the  older  states  of  the  South  with 
their  material  progress.  They  show  that  the  belief  was  held,  and 
no  doubt  they  contributed  to  its  spread,  that  commercial  depen- 
dence was  an  evidence  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  cause  of  "South- 
ern decline."  It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  the  common  element 
in  the  view  that  the  East  was  being  enriched  at  the  expense  of  the 
South  because  of  the  commercial  vassalage  of  the  latter  and  the 
quite  prevalent  belief  that  the  operation  of  the  Federal  govern- 
ment had  been  unequal  in  its  effects  upon  the  material  progress 
of  the  two  sections.  The  direct  trade  conventions  were  another 
manifestation  of  the  economic  discontent  of  which  evidence  had 
been  given  during  the  nullification  controversy. 


CHAPTER  II 

MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION 
OF  INDUSTRY,  1840-1852 

The  industrial  revolution  was  not  well  under  way  in  the  South 
until  almost  a  generation  after  the  Civil  War.  While  the  ante- 
bellum South  was  not  completely  devoid  of  manufacturing  and 
mining,  the  progress  of  those  industries  did  not  keep  pace  with  the 
progress  of  agriculture.  Southern  industry  was  no  more  diversified 
in  1860  than  in  the  earlier  decades  of  the  century.  In  this  respect 
the  South  presented  a  contrast  to  the  North,  where  the  industrial 
revolution  was  proceeding  apace.  Elsewhere  in  this  thesis  sta- 
tistics are  given  which  illustrate  the  comparative  industrial 
progress  of  the  sections. 

During  the  18405,  Southern  agriculture  suffered  a  long  and  quite 
severe  depression.  During  the  same  period  cotton  factories  were 
being  established  at  a  more  rapid  rate  than  in  the  decades  im- 
mediately preceding  or  following,  and  there  was  unusual  progress 
in  a  few  other  lines  of  industry.  The  profits  of  manufacturers 
seem  to  have  been  large  in  comparison  with  those  of  planters. 
These  conditions  were  chiefly  responsible  for  the  beginning  of  a 
more  or  less  organized  agitation"  in  favor  of  the  establishment  of 
manufactures.  As  the  agitation  developed,  social  and  political 
arguments  were  adduced  to  support  the  economic.  The  argu- 
ments of  the  proponents  of  diversified  industry  did  not  go  uncon- 
troverted,  however.  The  history  and  analysis  of  this  discussion 
shed  light  upon  the  subject  of  economic  discontent  in  the  South 
before  the  Civil  War.  An  essential  similarity  will  be  noted  be- 
tween some  of  the  ideas  at  the  basis  of  the  agitation  in  behalf  of 
manufactures  and  ideas  which  animated  the  direct  trade  move- 
ment described  in  the  preceding  chapter. 

The  decade  1840-1850  brought  the  severest  depression  to  agri- 
culture, particularly  to  cotton  culture,  that  the  South  experienced 
prior  to  the  Civil  War.  During  the  preceding  decade  cotton  prices 
had  averaged  12.6  cents,  and  the  industry  was  profitable.  During 
the  18405,  however,  the  average  price  was  about  8  cents,  and  the 
cotton  planters  were  greatly  disheartened.  The  decade  opened 
with  cotton  between  8  and  9  cents;  the  following  year  prices  were 
slightly  higher;  but  after  1841  prices  steadily  declined  until 

33 


34        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-lB6l       [34 

middling  upland  sold  for  5  cents  in  New  York,  January  I,  1845, 
the  lowest  price  ever  paid  for  American  cotton.1  A  contributor 
to  the  Southern  Quarterly  Review  wrote:  "At  no  period  of  our 
history,  from  the  year  1781,  has  a  greater  gloom  been  cast  over 
the  agricultural  prospects  of  South  Carolina,  than  at  the  present 
time."2  John  C.  Calhoun  wrote  his  son-in-law:  "Cotton  still  con- 
tinues to  fall.  Its  average  price  may  be  said  to  be  about  4  cents 
per  pound.  The  effect  will  be  ruinous  in  the  South,  and  will 
rouse  the  feeling  of  the  whole  section."3  For  years,  1845  was  re- 
membered as  the  year  of  the  great  cotton  crisis.  The  depression 
in  agriculture  was  not  confined  to  the  cotton  belt.  Edmund  Ruffin 
wrote  from  Virginia  that  prices  were  so  low  that  agriculture  could 
scarcely  live.4  Similar  reports  came  from  the  Northwest,  which 
still  depended  largely  upon  the  cotton  belt  for  a  market  for  grain, 
pork  and  bacon,  and  live  stock.  The  replies  to  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  Walker's  circular  (1845)  requesting  information  upon 
which  to  base  recommendations  for  a  revision  of  the  tariff,  even 
after  due  allowance  has  been  made  for  partisan  bias,  testify  to  the 
low  state  of  agriculture  in  the  South  and  West.5  A  North  Caro- 
linian reported  that  for  three  years  the  profits  of  agriculture  in 
his  state  had  not  been  more  than  3  per  cent,  because  of  poor 
crops  and  low  prices;  horses  and  mules  were  imported  from  Ohio, 
Indiana,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  western  Virginia,  and  prices 
were  one-third  lower  than  they  had  been  during  the  ten  years  pre- 
ceding. Similar  replies  came  from  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and 
Alabama.  Replies  from  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Missouri  rep- 
resented the  profits  of  agriculture  to  be  from  2  to  5  per  cent. 
Scarcely  a  response  was  optimistic  about  the  outlook  for  agricul- 
ture. 

The  grain  growing  states  were  the  first  to  experience  a  revival 
of  prosperity.  In  1846,  the  crop  failure  in  Ireland  and  large 
deficiencies  in  Great  Britain  and  in  many  parts  of  the  Continent 

*C.  F.  M'Cay,  "The  Cotton  Trade  from  1825-1850,"  in  Hunt's  Merchants' 
Magazine,  XXIII,  595-604;  E.  J.  Donnell,  History  of  Cotton,  passim;  M.  B. 
Hammond,  The  Cotton  Industry. 

•VIII,  118  (July,  1845). 

'Calhoun  to  Thomas  G.  Clemson,  Dec.  27,  1844,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 

*Ruffin  to  Hammond,  May  17,  1845,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 

'Exec.  Docs.,  29  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  II,  No.  5.  A  digest  of  the  replies  is  in 
DeBow's  Review,  VI,  285-304. 


35]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  35 

created  an  extraordinary  demand  for  foodstuffs,  which,  together 
with  the  repeal  of  the  English  Corn  Laws  the  same  year,  led  to  a 
remarkable  increase  in  the  exports  of  provisions  from  America 
in  that  and  the  following  year.6  Other  factors  soon  contributed  to 
the  revival,  and  Western  agriculture  entered  upon  a  period  of 
remarkable  prosperity,  unbroken  until  I85/.7  The  revival  of  pros- 
perity in  the  cotton  industry  was  delayed  for  two  or  three  years. 
The  crop  of  1846  was  short,  while  the  very  conditions  which 
caused  a  great  increase  in  the  prices  of  provisions  prevented  a 
considerable  rise  in  the  price.  It  was  a  saying  in  the  South  that 
dear  bread  in  Europe  meant  cheap  cotton.  The  crops  of  1847  and 
1848  were  large,  but  breadstuffs  continued  high  in  Great  Britain, 
Europe,  in  1848,  was  in  revolution,  and  cotton  prices  remained 
low.  In  the  fall  of  1849,  however,  cotton  was  high.  Pacification  of 
Europe,  revival  of  business  in  France,  fine  harvests  and  conse- 
quent cheap  bread  in  England,  the  exhaustion  of  old  stocks  of  raw 
cotton,  and  the  belief  that  the  new  crop  was  short,  caused  the  sea- 
son to  open  with  cotton  at  9.5  to  11.5  cents  at  New  Orleans.  The 
average  for  the  year  was  between  n  and  12  cents,  and  the  price 
was  maintained  the  following  year.  Though  the  price  fell  again 
in  1851-1852,  it  never  again,  before  the  war,  fell  to  the  level  of  the 
18403.  The  average  price  for  the  decade  1850-1860  was  10.6  cents.8 
As  cotton  prices  fell  the  older  cotton  states  were  the  first  to  find 
its  culture  unprofitable.  Their  lands  could  not  compete  on  equal 
terms  with  the  newer  lands  of  the  Southwest;  they  faced  not  only 
reduced  prices  and  diminished  returns  but  also  loss  of  popula- 
tion through  emigration.  As  early  as  1841,  J.  H.  Hammond,  of 
South  Carolina,  in  an  address  before  the  State  Agricultural  So- 
ciety, showed  a  thorough  grasp  of  the  situation  and  proposed  the 
remedies  which  were  so  fully  discussed  during  the  following 

"Census  of  1860,  Agriculture,  cxli. 

TOther  factors  were  the  construction  of  railroads  and  canals  connecting  the 
East  and  the  Northwest  and  the  development  of  the  Eastern  market. 

*Donnell,  History  of  Cotton,  passim.  Donnell's  annual  reviews  of  the  cotton 
trade  were  taken  from  the  New  Orleans  Price  Current.  His  statistics  were  from 
the  New  York  Shipping  List.  I  have  also  used  C.  F.  M'Cay's  annual  reviews  of 
the  cotton  trade,  which  appeared  regularly  for  several  years  in  the  December 
numbers  of  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine.  See  also  DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  106, 
for  cotton  prices. 


36        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1       [36 

years.9  In  the  past,  he  said,  the  production  of  cotton  could  not 
keep  pace  with  the  demand,  but  now  production  promised  to  out- 
run consumption.  Already  the  price  had  been  forced  down  to  a 
figure,  8  cents,  at  which  cotton  culture  in  South  Carolina  was 
profitable  only  on  the  richest  soils.  As  remedies,  Hammond  pro- 
posed, first,  improved  methods  of  cultivation  and  diversification  of 
agriculture.  The  planters  must  grow  grain  in  sufficient  quantities 
to  supply  the  home  demand;  they  must  raise  live  stock  and  save 
the  "immense  sums  which  are  annually  drawn  from  us  in  ex- 
change for  mules,  horses,  cattle,  hogs,  sheep,  and  even  poultry." 
Tobacco,  indigo,  sugar  cane,  and  grapes  might  be  introduced.  But 
these  remedies  would  not  suffice;  capital  must  be  diverted  from 
agriculture  to  other  pursuits.  The  state  had  mineral  resources 
which  could  be  developed.  "Already  furnaces,  forges,  bloomeries, 
and  rolling  mills  have  been  put  in  operation  with  every  prospect 
of  success  at  no  distant  day."  He  hoped  coal  would  be  found  near 
the  iron.  Manufactures  might  be  developed.  The  state  possessed 
splendid  resources  of  water-power.  A  beginning  had  already  been 
made  in  cotton  manufacture.  Manufactures  should  not  be  fostered 
by  legislation  at  the  expense  of  other  industries;  but  where  they 
grew  up  spontaneously  they  were  undoubtedly  a  great  blessing — 
increasing  population,  providing  a  home  market  for  agriculture, 
and  saving  large  sums  which  otherwise  would  be  sent  out  of  the 
state.  An  industrial  revolution  was  inevitable,  and  the  change 
could  be  effected  with  less  anxiety  and  loss  if  begun  early  and 
conducted  judiciously.  Hammond  regretted  the  revolution  in  in- 
dustry and  in  "manners  and  probably  the  entire  structure  of  our 
social  system"  which  the  failure  of  the  old  system  was  likely  to 
occasion,  but  saw  no  grounds  for  apprehension. 

In  the  following  years  the  discussion  increased  in  volume.  The 
Charleston  Patriot  published,  in  1842,  a  series  of  articles  in  which 
it  was  maintained  that  there  was  an  overproduction  of  cotton  and 
the  people  of  South  Carolina  were  urged  to  abandon  in  part  the 
raising  of  that  staple  and  turn  their  attention  to  manufacturing.10 

*F5Ie  20,219,  /•  H.  Hammond  Papers.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  Hammond 
had  been  a  nullifier  in  1832;  as  governor,  in  1844,  he  was  ready  to  lead  his  state 
in  separate  resistance  to  the  Tariff  of  1842;  and  shortly  after  he  wrote  the  famous 
Letters  on  Southern  Slavery,  Addressed  to  Thomas  Clarkson,  Esquire. 

"Nuts'  Register,  LXII,  71. 


37]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  37 

Georgia  newspapers  were  recommending  to  their  people  to  do  the 
same.11  Professor  M'Cay,  of  the  University  of  Georgia,  who  for 
many  years  reviewed  the  cotton  trade  for  Hunt's  Merchants' 
Magazine,  warned  planters  that  production  was  outrunning  con- 
sumption.12 In  February,  1845,  a  convention  of  cotton  planters 
was  held  in  Montgomery,  Alabama,  to  organize  the  planters  of  the 
cotton  belt  for  the  purpose  of  limiting  production  and  forcing 
prices  up.13  The  committee  on  agriculture  of  the  Southwest- 
ern Convention,  at  Memphis,  in  1845,  complained  that  interest  in 
agricultural  improvement  had  given  way  to  interest  in  internal  im- 
provements and  politics,  and  that  there  was  an  overproduction 
of  cotton.  The  committee  recommended  that  planters  grow  less 
cotton  and  produce  their  own  bread  and  meat;  that  scientific 
agriculture  be  encouraged  by  the  establishment  of  agricultural 
societies  and  agricultural  journals,  and  by  state  legislatures;  and 
that  capital  be  diverted  from  cotton  planting  to  manufacturing.14 
There  was  still  talk,  however,  of  possible  competition  from  India 
if  prices  should  rise,15  and  the  low  prices  were  frequently  attrib- 
uted to  speculation  in  cotton  and  to  a  combination  of  English  fac- 
tors with  the  Manchester  buyers.16 

It  was  in  South  Carolina  that  a  serious  attempt  to  arouse  the 
public  mind  in  favor  of  the  diversification  of  industry  was  first 
made.  The  situation  there  was  unusual.  Not  only  was  the  de- 
pression in  the  cotton  industry  most  severely  felt,  but  the  peculiar 
political  bias  of  a  large  element  threatened,  in  1844  and  1845,  to 
lead  to  another  crisis  similar  to  that  of  1832  and  1833.  When  the 
Tariff  of  1842  was  enacted,  the  South  Carolina  Legislature  had 
been  content  to  pass  resolutions  denouncing  it  and  declaring  that 
it  would  be  endured  as  long  as  there  was  hope  of  repeal  by  the 
Democratic  party  after  the  next  election.17  In  the  next  Congress, 
1843-1845,  the  Democrats  were  in  the  majority  in  the  House;  but 
an  attempt  to  revise  the  tariff,  by  the  McKay  bill,  was  defeated, 

llNiles'  Register,  loc.  cit. 
"Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  IX,  523. 
"Niles'  Register,  LXVIII,  4. 

^Journal  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Southwestern  Convention  began  and  held 
at  the  city  of  Memphis  on  the  12th  of  November,  1845,  pp.  41-55. 
"Donnell.  History  of  Cotton,  276. 

"New  Orleans  Bee,  Mar.  2,  1844;  Niles'  Register,  LXVI,  38. 
"Ibid.,  LXIII,  232-235,  344-345. 


38        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O1 86 1       [38 

May,  1844,  by  an  alliance  of  twenty-seven  Northern  Democrats 
with  the  Whigs.18  This  desertion  by  Northern  Democrats  and, 
shortly  thereafter,  the  publication  of  the  celebrated  "Kane  Let- 
ter," in  which  the  Democratic  candidate  for  the  presidency  clever- 
ly "straddled"  the  tariff  question,19  caused  many  in  South  Caro- 
lina to  abandon  hope  of  relief  from  the  burdens  of  the  tariff 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Democratic  party.  Meanwhile, 
the  blocking  of  the  annexation  of  Texas  by  representatives  from 
the  non-slaveholding  states  had  occasioned  the  cry  of  "Texas  or 
disunion"  in  South  Carolina  and  other  Southern  states.  Under 
these  circumstances  a  group  of  South  Carolina  politicians,  led  by 
R.  B.  Rhett,  Armistead  Burt,  and  I.  E.  Holmes,  with  the  support 
of  the  Charleston  Mercury  and  several  other  papers  of  like  stripe, 
and  the  sympathy  of  Governor  J.  H.  Hammond,  George  McDuffie, 
and  Langdon  Cheves,  declared,  in  the  summer  of  1844,  for  state 
resistance  to  the  Tariff  of  1842  and  attempted  to  lead  the  state 
to  adopt  that  policy.20  It  was  with  some  difficulty  that  John  C. 
Calhoun,  F.  H.  Elmore,  and  other  leaders  checked  the  "Bluffton 
Movement,"  as  it  was  termed,  and  caused  saner  counsels  to  pre- 
vail.21 Governor  Hammond,  indeed,  in  his  message  to  the  Legis- 
lature, November  26,  1844,  arraigned  the  tariff,  expressed  the 
opinion  that  no  relief  could  be  expected  from  the  incoming  Polk 

"Cong.  Globe,  28  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  622. 

"National  Intelligencer,  July  25,  1844. 

""I.  E.  Holmes  to  Hammond,  July  23,  1844,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers;  Ham- 
mond to  Capt.  R.  J.  Colcock,  Sept.  12,  1844  (asking  for  the  plans  of  the  Citadel); 
George  McDuffie  to  Hammond,  Sept.  22,  1844;  General  James  Hamilton  to  Ham- 
mond, Oct.  4,  1844;  R.  B.  Rhett  to  Hunter,  August  30,  1844,  Correspondence  of 
R.  M.  T.  Hunter;  Charleston  Mercury,  Aug.  8,  1844,  an  account  of  the  dinner 
given  to  R.  B.  Rhett  at  Bluffton,  July  31,  1844,  where  the  movement  was 
launched  and  whence  it  got  its  name;  ibid.,  Aug.  9,  editorial,  "Our  Position  and 
Our  Pledges"  (by  A.  J.  Stuart,  senior  editor);  Niles'  Register,  LXVI,  369,  quot- 
ing letter  from  I.  E.  Holmes  to  the  Charleston  Mercury;  ibid.,  LXVII,  49,  quot- 
ing letter  from  Judge  Langdon  Cheves  to  the  Charleston  Mercury.  Cf.  Stephen- 
son,  Texas  and  the  Mexican  War,  ch.  IX. 

MF.  H.  Elmore  to  Calhoun,  Aug.  26,  1844,  Calhoun  Correspondence.  "The 

excitement  in  a  portion  of  Carolina has  gradually  subsided,  and  will  give  no 

further  trouble.  I  had  to  act  with  great  delicacy,  but  at  the  same  time  firmness 
in  relation  to  it."  Calhoun  to  Francis  Wharton,  Sept.  17,  1844,  Calhoun  Corre- 
spondence. Cf.  James  A.  Seddon  to  Hunter,  Aug.  19,  22,  1844,  Correspondence 
of  R.  M.  T.  Hunter;  Niles'  Register,  LXVI,  434,  account  of  the  big  Charleston 
meeting  of  Aug.  19,  1844. 


39]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  39 

administration,  and  urged  the  Legislature  to  take  such  measures 
as  would  at  an  early  day  bring  all  the  state's  "moral,  constitu- 
tional, and,  if  necessary,  physical  resources,  in  direct  array 
against  a  policy  which  has  never  been  checked  but  by  her  inter- 
position."22 But  the  Legislature  tabled  all  resolutions  for  resist- 
ance, and  by  a  large  majority  voted  confidence  in  the  Democratic 
party.  This  action  was  taken  just  after  the  notorious  Twenty- 
first  Rule  of  the  House,  prohibiting  the  receiving  of  abolition  peti- 
tions, had  been  defeated  at  Washington.23  The  leaders  of  the 
Bluffton  movement  credited  their  defeat  to  the  presidential  as- 
pirations of  John  C.  Calhoun,  and  complained  very  bitterly  of 
what  they  termed  his  desertion.24 

The  resistance  faction,  as  well  as  many  anti-tariff  men  who  still 
placed  reliance  in  the  Democratic  party,  attributed  the  crisis  in 
the  cotton  industry  to  the  tariff.  They  thought  the  view  that 
there  was  an  overproduction  of  cotton  unworthy  of  considera- 
tion.25 England,  they  said,  could  not  consume  cotton  because  the 
Tariff  of  1842  had  deprived  her  of  the  American  market  for  man- 
factured  goods.  I.  E.  Holmes  professed  to  believe  that  the  opera- 
tion of  the  tariff  would  in  a  few  years  render  cotton  planting  en- 
tirely profitless,  and  that  no  other  industry  could  be  found  to 
which  labor  could  profitably  be  turned.26  Rhett  and  McDuffie 
warned  tariff  men  in  Congress  that  South  Carolina  might  be 
"driven"  to  manufacture  for  herself.27  Calhoun  wrote:  "The 
pressure  of  the  Tariff  begins  to  be  felt,  and  understood,  which  will 
lead  to  its  overthrow,  either  through  Congress  or  the  separate 
action  of  the  South."28 

"NileS  Register,  LXVII,  227  ff. 

Hammond  to  McDuffie,  Dec.  27,  1844,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers;  F.  W. 
Pickens  to  Calhoun,  Dec.  28,  1844,  Calhoun  Correspondence;  Niles'  Register, 
LXVIII,  347  (Aug.  1 6,  1845),  quoting  from  the  Charleston  Mercury  a  letter 
from  ''Bluffton  Politician,"  dated  on  the  anniversary  of  the  Bluffton  dinner; 
Cong.  Globe,  28  Cong.  2  Sess.,  7. 

"Hammond  to  McDuffie,  Dec.  27,  1844,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 

"Letter  of  Judge  John  P.  King,  Charleston  Mercury,  Nov.  5,  1844. 

"Niles'  Register,  LXVI,  369,  quoting  the  Charleston  Mercury;  National  In- 
telligencer, Aug.  6,  1844. 

"Cong.  Globe,  28  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  612;  Appx.  108,  658;  Hunt's  Merchants' 
Magazine,  X,  406. 

"Calhoun  to  Thomas  G.  Clemson,  Dec.  27,  1844,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 


4-O        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1       [40 

Against  these  convictions,  the  Whigs  and  many  Democrats  took 
issue.  The  Charleston  Courier  declared  without  equivocation  for  a 
moderate  tariff.29  A  pamphleteer,  replying  to  a  letter  of  Judge 
Langdon  Cheves,  declared  that  free  trade  would  not  save  the 
state.  The  ruin  of  the  state  was  due  to  the  lack  of  stimulus  which 
manufactures  would  give  to  agriculture  and  commerce;  and  it 
was  the  hostility  of  politicians  which  prevented  manufactures  from 
being  established.30  R.  W.  Roper,  a  rich  planter,  generally  aligned 
in  politics  with  the  Hammond  or  anti-machine  faction  of  the 
Democratic  party,  came  out  for  the  policy  of  encouraging  do- 
mestic manufactures  as  an  amelioration  of  the  tariff.  In  an  ad- 
dress before  the  State  Agricultural  Society,  in  November,  1844,  he 
traced  the  depression  in  the  cotton  industry  to  overproduction, 
and  declared  for  diversified  agriculture  and  the  encouragement  of 
manufactures  and  commerce,  not  only  as  a  remedy  for  economic 
ills  but  also  as  a  means  of  becoming  independent  of  the  North. 
"As  long,"  he  said,  "as  we  are  tributaries,  dependent  on  foreign 
labor  and  skill  for  food,  clothing,  and  countless  necessaries  of 
life,  we  are  in  thraldom."31  Roper's  address  was  vigorously  at- 
tacked in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  Charleston  Mercury  under  the 
caption,  "Shall  we  continue  to  plant  and  increase  the  overgrowth 
of  cotton?  Or  shall  we  become  manufacturers  of  cotton  stuffs?"  In 
the  opinion  of  the  author  of  these  articles,  there  was  no  overpro- 
duction of  cotton;  but  the  ills  of  the  South  came  from  overtaxa- 
tion. South  Carolina,  he  said,  could  not  develop  diversified  indus- 
try with  her  system  of  labor,  and  it  was  not  desirable  that  she 
should.32 

Late  in  the  year  1844,  there  appeared  a  series  of  articles  headed 
Essays  on  Domestic  Industry;  or  an  Inquiry  into  the  Expediency 
of  Establishing  Cotton  Manufactures  in  South  Carolina,  by  Wil- 
liam Gregg,  of  South  Carolina.  The  articles  first  appeared  in  the 
Charleston  Courier.  Upon  request  they  were  reprinted  in  pam- 
phlet form.  They  attracted  wide  attention  throughout  the  South, 
being  republished  in  nearly  all  the  newspapers  of  Georgia,  Ala- 

MQuoted  in  the  National  Intelligencer,  Aug.  6,  1844. 

*°A  Reply  to  the  Letter  of  the  Hon.  Langdon  Cheves.  By  a  Southerner. 

"Roper  to  Hammond,  Oct.  28,  1844,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers;  Niles'  Regis- 
ter, LXVIII,  103,  120.  The  address  was  reviewed  in  the  So.  Quar.  Rev.,  VIII, 
118-148  (July,  1845). 

"Niles'  Register,  LXVIII,  54,  103,  120. 


41  ]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  4! 

bama,  and  other  states.33  They  constituted  the  most  elaborate 
argument  for  the  diversification  of  Southern  industry  that  ap- 
peared before  the  Civil  War.  Already  a  cotton  manufacturer, 
Gregg  later  increased  his  interests.  He  was  known  until  after  the 
Civil  War  as  the  most  successful  cotton  manufacturer  in  the 
Southern  states  and  the  ablest  advocate  of  the  policy  of  develop- 
ing manufactures  in  that  section.3* 

Gregg  described  the  depressed  condition  of  agriculture  in  the 
state  and  the  tendency  of  capital  and  enterprise  to  migrate  to 
more  fertile  lands.  The  causes  lay  not  in  the  tariff  but  in  lack  of 
energy  on  the  part  of  the  people,  want  of  diversified  agriculture, 
and  dependence  upon  the  North  for  numerous  articles  of  manu- 
facture which  might  be  produced  at  home.  He  called  attention  to 
the  rapid  progress  then  being  made  in  cotton  manufacturing  in  the 
neighboring  states  of  Georgia  and  North  Carolina  and  advised  the 
people  of  South  Carolina  to  emulate  the  example.  He  showed 
that  the  requisite  capital  was  available.  As  for  a  labor  supply, 
slaves  could  be  used,  and  in  many  respects  would  be  preferable  to 
whites;  but  he  did  not  overlook  the  possibility  of  employing  the 
thousands  of  poor  whites,  who  as  a  class  were  an  unproductive 
element  in  society.  Later  he  became  an  earnest  advocate  of  the 
employment  of  this  class  both  on  economic  and  philanthropic 
grounds.  Gregg  understood  the  difficulties  which  infant  industries 
would  have  to  meet.  He,  therefore,  advised  the  establishment  of 
factories  by  joint  stock  companies  rather  than  by  individuals, 
and  confinement  for  several  years  to  the  manufacture  of  only 
coarse  goods,  thus  taking  fullest  advantage  of  the  ability  of  South- 
ern mills  to  command  cheaper  raw  materials  than  Northern  mills. 
It  seemed  politic  not  to  antagonize  unduly  the  anti-protectionist 
sentiment  of  South  Carolina:  Gregg  assured  his  readers  that  no 
laws  would  be  asked  for  the  protection  of  the  enterprises  in  which 
it  was  proposed  to  embark.  He  did  not  believe  that  manufactures 
would  ever  predominate  over  agriculture  in  the  state;  and  those 
who  advocated  diversification  did  not  wish  such  a  result,  he  said. 

"DeBow's  Review,  X,  349.  The  essays  are,  in  a  somewhat  abridged  form, 
in  DeBow's  Review,  VIII,  134-46;  also  in  the  appendix  of  D.  A.  Tompkins,  Cot- 
ton Mill,  Commercial  Features,  A  Text-Book  for  the  Use  of  Textile  Schools,  etc. 
(Charlotte,  N.  C,  1879). 

**De Bow's  Review,  X,  348-52,  a  short  sketch  of  Gregg's  career. 


42        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84<>l86l       [42 

At  the  next  session  of  the  South  Carolina  Legislature,  Novem- 
ber, 1845,  charters  for  several  companies  to  erect  cotton  factories 
were  applied  for.  At  the  time  corporations  were  somewhat  un- 
popular in  the  South,  and  opposition  was  met.  Gregg  thereupon 
wrote  a  pamphlet  entitled  An  Inquiry  into  the  Expediency  of 
Granting  Charters  of  Incorporation  for  Manufacturing  Purposes 
in  South  Carolina.  Copies  were  distributed  among  the  members 
of  the  Legislature.  After  a  sharp  struggle  the  charters  were  grant- 
ed by  large  majorities.35  The  Graniteville  company,  in  which 
Gregg  was  a  large  stockholder,  was  one  of  those  chartered.  Only 
the  most  substantial  citizens  were  permitted  to  take  stock.36 
Gregg  was  made  manager;  the  factory  was  soon  built  and  put  in 
successful  operation.  He  was  allowed  to  carry  into  practice  his 
philanthropic  ideas  in  regard  to  the  poor  whites.  Cottages  were 
built  and  rented  to  the  operatives,  free  and  compulsory  education 
established,  a  church  constructed,  and  intemperance  forbidden. 
No  negroes  were  employed.  The  factory  was  one  of  the  few  in 
the  South  that  continued  to  pay  dividends  during  the  hard  years 
of  1850-1854." 

Many  others,  following  the  publication  of  Gregg's  essays,  came 
forward  to  advocate  the  diversification  of  Southern  industry,  par- 
ticularly by  the  erection  of  cotton  factories  near  the  cotton  fields. 
Governor  Crawford,  of  Georgia,  urged  the  Legislature  to  adopt 
some  plan  to  restore  the  fertility  of  the  soil  and  foster  manufac- 
tures.38 The  Tennessee  House  of  Representatives  appointed  a 
select  committee  to  report  on  manufacturing  resources.39  The 
state  of  Alabama  engaged  Mr.  Tuomy,  professor  in  the  State 
University,  to  make  a  survey  of  the  mineral  resources  of  the 
state.40  The  Richmond  Whig  published,  in  1846,  the  Letters  from 
the  Hon.  Abbott  Lawrence  to  the  Hon.  William  C.  Rives  of  Vir- 
ginia, which,  while  primarily  a  plea  against  the  repeal  of  the  tariff, 
hailed  the  movement  in  the  South  for  diversification  of  industry, 

""De  Bow's  Review,  X,  351. 

86Ker  Boyce  to  Hammond,  Dec.  12,  1845,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 

'"DeBow's  Review,  X,  351;  XVIII,  789  f.;  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine, 
XXI,  671.  Cf.  Ingle,  Southern  Sidelights,  85. 

"Niles'  Register,  LXIX,  162. 

"Ibid.,  LXIX,  400. 

*"DeBow's  Review,  IV,  404.  Tuomy  later  became  state  geologist  and  issued 
his  First  Annual  Report,  1850. 


43]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  43 

and  urged  the  people  of  Virginia  to  manufacture  and  develop  the 
state's  mineral  resources.41  DeBow's  Review,  the  first  number  of 
which  appeared  in  January,  1846,  lent  its  influence  to  the  cause.42 
Numerous  articles  in  that  journal  testify  to  the  growing  conviction 
that  there  was  an  overproduction  of  cotton,  and  that  the  South 
should  diversify  agriculture  and  divert  capital  to  other  industries. 
In  South  Carolina,  1849,  an  organization  styled  the  "South  Caro- 
lina Institute  for  the  Promotion  of  Art,  Mechanical  Ingenuity, 
and  Industry"  was  formed.  This  organization  was  a  direct  out- 
growth of  the  movement  for  diversification  of  Southern  industry.43 

The  .interest  in  cotton  manufactures  spread  to  the  Ohio  valley. 
One  of  the  most  active  advocates  was  Hamilton  Smith,  a  wealthy 
lawyer  and  business  man  of  Louisville,  Kentucky,  who  had  ac- 
quired large  holdings  in  coal  lands  near  Cannelton,  Indiana.  In 
1847,  he  wrote  a  series  of  articles  for  the  Louisville  Journal  dem- 
onstrating the  advantages  of  coal  over  water  power  in  cotton  fac- 
tories, and  the  advantage  of  the  Ohio  valley  over  the  East  as  a 
seat  for  such  factories  by  reason  of  proximity  to  the  cotton  fields. 
His  articles  were  widely  copied  in  Southern  and  Western  news- 
papers, and  some  of  his  letters  were  inserted  in  the  Manchester, 
England,  Guardian.  In  the  following  year,  Smith  and  several 
other  public  spirited  citizens  of  Kentucky,  Indiana,  Mississippi, 
and  Louisiana,  being  desirous  of  proving  their  faith  by  works, 
organized  a  company  which  constructed  a  model  factory  at  Can- 
nelton. Charles  T.  James  of  Rhode  Island,  the  most  successful 
builder  of  steam  cotton  factories  in  the  United  States,  became  in- 
terested in  the  project,  and  superintended  the  erection  of  the  fac- 
tory. A  journal,  the  Cannelton  Economist,  was  established  to  con- 
duct a  campaign  in  the  behalf  of  manufactures.** 

The  agitation  in  behalf  of  building  cotton  factories  received  en- 
couragement from  the  fact  that  considerable  capital  was  actually 
being  invested  in  the  new  branch  of  industry  and  seemed  to  be 

"Also  published  as  a  pamphlet,  1846. 

**I,  5.  In  the  number  for  Nov.,  1847,  a  Department  of  Domestic  Manufac- 
tures was  begun,  which  was  continued  with  few  interruptions  for  several  years. 

"DeBow's  Review,  VIII,  276;  XI,  123. 

^Ibid.,  XI,  90  f.;  VI,  75  ff.;  VIII,  456-61;  Western  Journal  and 
Civilian,  II,  139;  Hamilton  Smith,  The  Relative  Cost  of  Steam  and  Water  Power, 
the  Illinois  Coal  Fields,  and  the  Advantages  Offered  by  the  West,  particularly  on 
the  Lower  Ohio,  for  Manufactures. 


44        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1       [44 

yielding  good  profits.  All  through  the  18405,  the  journals  of  the 
South  recorded  at  frequent  intervals  the  establishment  of  fac- 
tories, especially  cotton  factories,  in  that  section.  In  1843,  the  Bal- 
timore American  stated  that  in  North  Carolina  a  revolution  had 
been  effected  in  the  trade  of  cotton  yarns  within  a  few  years.45 
Niles'  Register,  in  1845,  remarked  the  number  of  cotton  factories 
being  erected  alongside  the  cotton  fields,  and  prophesied  that  in  a 
few  years  the  Southern  states  would  supply  coarse  cotton  clothing 
for  millions.46  In  the  tariff  debates  of  1844  an^  1846,  congressmen 
from  North  Carolina  and  Georgia,  particularly,  invited  attention 
to  the  rapid  development  of  cotton  and  other  manufactures  in 
their  states.47  The  numerous  acts  incorporating  manufacturing 
companies  passed  during  these  years  by  the  legislatures  of  states 
which  had  not  yet  enacted  general  incorporation  laws  would  seem 
to  testify  to  a  development  of  manufacturing.  During  the  last  few 
years  of  the  decade  and  the  first  few  years  of  the  next,  the  ac- 
counts of  new  factories,  built  or  in  process  of  building,  became 
more  and  more  frequent;  and  the  development  began  to  attract 
notice  in  the  North.  Said  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  1850: 
"We  seldom  take  up  a  paper  published  in  the  Southern  and 
Western  States  of  the  Union,  that  does  not  contain  some  new  de- 
velopment of  their  manufacturing  enterprise."48 

By  1849  the  movement  to  "bring  the  spindles  to  the  cotton"  had 
become  popular  in  all  quarters  of  the  South.  According  to  De- 
Bow's  Review,  every  month  added  more  and  more  to  the  interest 
shown  in  manufactures.49  The  next  year  Hamilton  Smith  wrote: 
". .  .for  the  last  two  years,  one  of  the  most  prominent  topics  of  dis- 
cussion in  the  newspapers  of  the  South  and  West  has  been,  not 
whether  cotton  mills  could  or  could  not  be  operated  at  home,  but 
when,  where  and  by  whom,  they  should  be  put  in  operation."50 

'"Quoted  in  Niks'  Register,  LXIV,  272. 

"Ibid.,  LXV1II,  87,  April  12. 

"Cong.  Globe,  28  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  598,  Cobb,  of  Ga.,  in  the  House;  28 
Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  108,  McDuffie,  of  S.  C.,  in  the  Senate;  28  Cong.,  i  Sess., 
512,  Berrien,  of  Ga.,  in  the  Senate. 

"XXIII,  247.  Cf.  XVIII,  227.  "The  progress  of  manufacturing  industry  at 
the  South  and  West  has  been  very  rapid  in  the  past  two  years."  Ibid.,  XXII, 
646,  (1850). 

"VII,  454- 

"DeBoiv's  Review,  VIII,  550. 


45]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  45 

The  people  of  the  South  became  firmly  convinced  that  their 
section  had  rare  advantages  for  the  manufacture  of  cotton  goods, 
and  could  compete  successfully  with  New  England.  Statements 
were  frequently  made  and  rarely  contradicted  that  mills  already 
in  operation  were  earning  profits  of  from  15  to  20  per  cent.  The 
representations  of  Gregg,  Hamilton  Smith,  and  others,  relative  to 
the  advantages  possessed  by  the  South,  seemed  sound.  The  most 
authoritative  statements  were  those  of  General  Charles  T.  James, 
of  Rhode  Island.  James  claimed  to  have  superintended  the  erec- 
tion of  more  than  one-eighth  of  the  cotton  spindles  in  the  United 
States.  He  had  shown  his  faith  in  the  South  and  West  by  taking 
stock  in  the  steam  factory  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  and  the 
one  at  Cannelton,  Indiana.51  Leaders  in  the  diversification  move- 
ment appealed  to  him  to  give  information  which  might  help  to 
arouse  interest  and  educate  the  people  in  the  subject.  In  response 
he  wrote,  in  1849,  a  pamphlet  entitled,  Practical  Hints  on  the 
Comparative  Cost  and  Productiveness  of  the  Culture  of  Cotton 
and  the  Cost  and  Productiveness  of  its  Manufacture,  etc.52  The 
pamphlet  was  widely  read  and  quoted,  as  were  a  number  of 
articles  which  he  wrote.  He  compared  the  great  profits  of  cotton 
manufacturers  with  planters'  profits;  undertook  to  demonstrate 
the  superiority  of  steam-power,  which  the  South  must  use,  over 
water-power;  and  dwelt  upon  the  advantages  the  South  possessed 
in  having  fresh  raw  material  at  hand  and  the  saving  in  freight 
charges  to  be  effected  by  establishing  the  factories  near  the  fields. 
He  gave  the  assurance  that  no  great  reserve  of  capital  was  neces- 
sary to  embark  in  the  business.  Factories  could  be  started  on 
credit,  and  capital  would  accumulate — just  as  had  been  the  case 
in  New  England.  No  fears  need  be  entertained  in  regard  to  labor 
supply:  if  the  factories  should  be  opened,  the  labor  and  skill 
would  be  at  hand.  The  South  would  not  experience  the  difficulties 
in  effecting  this  revolution  in  its  industry  which  New  England  had 
encountered  thirty  years  before;  for  she  could  start  with  the  best 
machinery,  and  could  avoid  the  mistakes  made  in  the  North. 

James's  statements  were  violently  attacked  in  the  New  England 
press.53  A  warm  debate  was  conducted  by  James  and  Amos  A. 

"DeBow's  Review,  IX,  671  ff.;  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXII,  311,4.55. 
"Published  also  in  DeBow's  Review,  VII,  173-6,  370-2;  VIII,  307-11,  462-6, 
556-60.   The  substance  is  in  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXI,  492-502. 
Review,  IX,  558,  quoting  the  New  York  Herald. 


46        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [46 

Lawrence,  a  prominent  Massachusetts  cotton  manufacturer, 
through  the  columns  of  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine.  Lawrence 
said  the  South  could  not  manufacture  because  she  lacked  capital, 
and  factories  could  not  be  successful  if  built  with  borrowed  money. 
He  contended  that  James  had  underestimated  the  profits  of  cot- 
ton planters  and  overestimated  those  of  cotton  manufacturers.  He 
controverted  James's  statements  in  regard  to  the  superiority  of 
steam-power  over  water-power.  William  Gregg  and  Hamilton 
Smith  joined  in  the  controversy  in  support  of  James.54  The  South- 
ern press  thought  Lawrence's  articles  were  dictated  by  self-inter- 
est, and  that  James  had  completely  prostrated  his  reviewer.  The 
New  England  manufacturers  were  represented  as  being  hostile 
to  the  new  enterprises  in  the  South.  James  himself  wrote:  "For 
years  the  Northern  press  has  been  loud  and  frequent  in  recom- 
mendations to  the  South,  to  enter  the  field  of  enterprise,  and  man- 
ufacture her  own  staple During  the  time,  however,  the  man- 
ufacturers have  uttered  no  note  of  encouragement."55 

But  the  wide  spread  interest  manifested  in  manufacturing  dur- 
ing these  years  and  the  welcome  given  every  evidence  of  industrial 
enterprise  were  not  due  solely  to  the  prevalent  belief  that  there 
was  an  overproduction  of  cotton,  and  that  spinning  the  yarn  and 
weaving  the  cloth  would  yield  a  higher  profit  upon  capital  in- 
vested than  did  the  production  of  the  raw  material.  Manufac- 
tures were  approved  as  promising  an  avenue  of  escape  from  an  ill 
balanced  economic  system  and  its  attendant  evils,  social  and  po- 
litical. 

In  the  first  place,  home  manufactures  would  free  the  South 
from  dependence  upon  the  North  for  numerous  articles  which 
might  be  produced  at  home;  just  as  diversified  agriculture  would 
free  it  from  dependence  upon  the  West  for  horses,  mules,  pork, 
and  bacon;  or  as  direct  trade  would  free  it  from  commercial  de- 
pendence upon  the  East.  Dependence  upon  other  sections  of  the 
Union  was  felt  to  be  "degrading  vassalage,"  a  subject  for  morti- 
fication and  humiliation,  and  because  of  it  the  North  was  being 
enriched  and  the  South  impoverished. 

"Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXI,  628-33;  XXII,  26-35,  184-94,  290-311, 
107-8;  XXIII,  342-3;  Df Bow's  Review,  VIII,  550-55;  IX,  674-75. 
"Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXII,  309. 


47]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  47 

Northern  men  were  constantly  boasting  of  the  superiority  of 
their  section  of  the  Union;  every  foreign  traveler  drew  a  pic- 
ture of  contrast.  The  wealth  and  population  of  the  North,  the  size, 
prosperity,  and  attractiveness  of  its  cities  and  towns,  the  mileage, 
cost,  and  efficiency  of  the  railroads  and  canals,  the  manufactures 
and  mines,  ships  and  shipping,  the  farms,  the  price  of  land  and  the 
methods  of  agriculture,  the  homes,  shops,  and  places  of  amuse- 
ment, the  schools  and  colleges,  number  of  students  and  percent- 
age of  illiteracy,  newspapers  and  their  circulation,  the  develop- 
ment of  literature  and  art — all  were  contrasted  with  those  of  the 
South,  and  almost  invariably  to  the  advantage  of  the  North.  It 
was  pointed  out  that  Southerners  depended  upon  Northern  ship- 
ping, bought  Northern  manufactured  goods,  flocked  to  Northern 
watering  places,  sent  their  sons  to  Northern  colleges,  and  read 
Northern  literature.  The  conclusion  was  that  the  North  had 
reached  a  higher  degree  of  civilization,  prosperity,  and  comfort. 
The  disparity  was  generally  credited  to  superior  industry  and  en- 
terprise in  the  North  and  to  the  blighting  effects  of  slavery  in  the 
South. 

Southern  people  admitted  the  contrast — it  was  impossible  not 
to  do  so.  They  generally,  by  no  means  without  exception,  ad- 
mitted that  the  North  was  more  prosperous.  When  John  Forsyth, 
in  his  lecture  on  "The  North  and  the  South,"  asked  the  question, 
"Why  is  it  that  the  North  has  so  far  outstripped  the  South  in  com- 
merce, the  growth  of  its  cities,  internal  development,  and  the  arts 
of  living?"56  he  but  made  an  admission  that  Southerners  com- 
monly made.  J.  H.  Hammond  wrote:  "It  has  so  often  been  as- 
serted, that  in  population  and  its  ratio  of  increase,  in  wealth, 
aggregate  and  average  and  the  facility  of  its  accumulation,  in  in- 
dustry, intelligence  and  enterprise  the  North  is  vastly  in  advance 
of  the  South,  and  by  consequence  that  it  is  the  strong  and  pro- 
tecting, while  the  South  is  the  weak  and  dependent  section — all 
these  things  have  been  so  long  and  so  generally  asserted  in  the 
South  as  well  as  the  North,  that  they  have  gained  almost  universal 
credence."57 

"DeBow's  Review,  XVII,  365. 

"Southern  Quarterly  Review,  XV,  275.  Cf.    J.  H.  Hammond  to  Wm.  Gil- 
more  Simms,  Mar.  9,  20,  23,  Apr.  6,  1849.  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 


48        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1      [48 

Now  the  superiority  of  the  North  in  these  respects  was  not  to 
be  viewed  with  equanimity  in  any  case  by  the  loyal  and  progres- 
sive Southerner;  and  his  discontent  was  augmented  because  of 
his  belief  that  the  North  was  prospering  at  the  expense  of  the 
South.  The  feeling  of  a  large  element  in  the  South  in  regard  to 
the  matter  is  well  illustrated  by  the  following  typical  quotation 
from  an  Alabama  newspaper: 

At  present,  the  North  fattens  and  grows  rich  upon  the  South. 
We  depend  upon  it  for  our  entire  supplies.  We  purchase  all  our 
luxuries  and  necessaries  from  the  North  ....  With  us,  every 
branch  and  pursuit  in  life,  every  trade,  profession,  and  occupation, 
is  dependent  upon  the  North;  for  instance,  the  Northerners  abuse 
and  denounce  slavery  and  slaveholders,  yet  our  slaves  are  clothed 
with  Northern  manufactured  goods,  have  Northern  hats  and 
shoes,  work  with  Northern  hoes,  ploughs,  and  other  implements, 
are  chastised  with  a  Northern-made  instrument,  are  working  for 
Northern  more  than  Southern  profit.  The  slaveholder  dresses  in 
Northern  goods,  rides  in  a  Northern  saddle,  ....  sports  his  North- 
ern carriage,  patronizes  Northern  newspapers,  drinks  Northern 
liquors,  reads  Northern  books,  spends  his  money  at  Northern 
watering-places,  ....  The  aggressive  acts  upon  his  rights  and 
his  property  arouse  his  resentment — and  on  Northern-made 
paper,  with  a  Northern  pen,  with  Northern  ink,  he  resolves  and 
re-resolves  in  regard  to  his  rights !  In  Northern  vessels  his  products 
are  carried  to  market,  his  cotton  is  ginned  with  Northern  gins, 
his  sugar  is  crushed  and  preserved  by  Northern  machinery;  his 
rivers  are  navigated  by  Northern  steamboats,  his  mails  are  carried 
in  Northern  stages,  his  negroes  are  fed  with  Northern  bacon,  beef, 
flour,  and  corn;  his  land  is  cleared  with  a  Northern  axe,  and  a 
Yankee  clock  sits  upon  his  mantel-piece;  his  floor  is  swept  by  a 
Northern  broom,  and  is  covered  with  a  Northern  carpet;  and  his 
wife  dresses  herself  in  a  Northern  looking-glass;  ...  his  son  is 
educated  at  a  Northern  college,  his  daughter  receives  the  finishing 
polish  at  a  Northern  seminary;  his  doctor  graduates  at  a  Northern 
medical  college,  his  schools  are  supplied  with  Northern  teachers, 
and  he  is  furnished  with  Northern  inventions  and  notions.58 

Some  of  those  who  preached  diversification  of  industry  not  only 
affirmed,  as  did  the  anti-tariff  men  for  that  matter,  that  the  North 
was  growing  prosperous,  wealthy,  and  powerful  at  the  South's  ex- 
pense, but  demonstrated  why  it  would  continue  to  do  so  as  long 
as  the  latter  persevered  in  her  unwise  application  of  labor.  They 

""Quoted  in  F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  An  Oration  Delivered  before  the  Citizens  of 
Tuscaloosa,  Alabama,  July  4th,  1851,  p.  12. 


49J  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  49 

laid  down  the  general  propositions  that  an  agricultural  people  is 
always  exploited  by  an  industrial  people,  and  that  wealth  tends 
to  flow  toward  industrial  centers.  In  the  opinion  of  M.  Tarver,  it 
was  because  she  parted  with  her  staples  at  prime  cost  and  pur- 
chased almost  all  of  her  necessary  supplies  from  abroad  at  cost 
plus  profits,  that  the  South  was  "growing  poorer  while  the  rest  of 
the  world  is  growing  rich,  for  it  is  easy  for  the  world  to  enrich 
itself  from  such  a  customer  on  such  terms."59  Governor  J.  H. 
Hammond,  who  in  his  address  before  the  South  Carolina  Insti- 
tute set  himself  the  task  of  showing  philosophically  why  a  people 
of  one  occupation  can  never  attain  prosperity  and  influence, 
thought  one  industry  was  not  enough  to  absorb  all  the  genius  and 
draw  out  all  the  energies  of  a  people.60  According  to  the  Rich- 
mond Enquirer,  "commercial  and  manufacturing  nations  levy  a 
heavier  tax  on  their  dependents  than  any  despot  ever  exacted 
from  subject  provinces.  Labor  employed  in  commerce  or  manu- 
factures, in  the  general,  pays  three  or  four  times  as  much  as  farm- 
ing labor,  and  in  the  exchange  of  one  for  the  other,  the  farmer 
gives  the  manufacturer  three  or  four  hours'  labor  for  one."61  Sim- 
ilar was  the  reasoning  of  F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  of  Alabama  State 
University:  The  kinds  of  labor  in  which  the  element  of  skill  most 
predominates  are  the  most  productive.  Therefore,  the  wealth  of  a 
people  depends  as  much  upon  the  direction  given  to  labor  as  upon 
the  amount  of  labor  employed.  An  agricultural  people  might  be 
rich,  though  only  in  the  case  Nature  is  lavish  in  her  bounties;  but 
"riches  thus  bestowed,  while  the  means  of  greater  riches  remain 
unemployed,  will  never  give  contentment."62 

But  no  matter  how  the  North  reaped  profit  from  Southern  in- 
dustry, there  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  advantages  of  retaining 
the  profit  at  home.  Everything  that  manufactures  had  done  for 
the  North  and  for  England  they  would  do  for  the  South.  Her 
stagnant  cities  would  grow,  and  new  ones  spring  into  existence. 

KDeBow's  Review,  III,  203. 

"Ibid.,  VIII,  503  if.  Cf.  Hammond  to  William  Gilmore  Simms,  Dec.  20, 
1849.  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 

"Quoted  in  DeBow's  Review,  XX,  392.  See  also  Fitzhugh,  Sociology  for  the 
South,  ch.  XIV,  "Exclusive  Agriculture,"  and  ch.  XVIII,  "Head-work  and  Hand- 
work." 

"Oration  Delivered  before  the  Citizens  of  Tuscaloosa,  Alabama,  July  4th, 
1861,  p.  16  f. 


5O        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  18401861       [$0 

Surplus  capital  no  longer  would  be  under  the  necessity  of  seeking 
investment  elsewhere.  Railroads  would  be  built,  and  steamships 
launched  upon  the  rivers;  dykes  would  be  built,  and  marshes 
drained;  capital  would  be  forthcoming  to  develop  the  mineral  re- 
sources which  the  people  of  the  South  were  beginning  to  realize 
she  possessed.  For  the  planter  and  the  farmer  a  home  market 
would  be  provided,  not  subject  to  the  fluctuations  of  the  foreign 
market.  Diversified  agriculture  would  be  stimulated;  the  planter 
would  no  longer  have  to  resort  to  distant  states  for  his  mules, 
pork,  corn,  and  hay.63 

Nor  did  the  proponents  of  diversification  neglect  to  depict  the 
social  benefits  to  come  with  new  industries.  With  the  develop- 
ment of  manufactures,  towns  and  villages  would  spring  up  among 
the  scattered  population.  More  and  better  schools  could  be  estab- 
lished; for  the  chief  cause  of  backwardness  in  educational  progress 
in  the  South  was  the  sparsity  of  population.  Churches  could  be 
brought  within  the  reach  of  a  greater  number.  Colleges  could  be 
supported  at  home,  and  Southern  parents  would  no  longer  be 
under  the  necessity  of  sending  their  sons  North  for  a  good  college 
training.  With  the  increased  wealth  and  population  which  manu- 
factures would  bring,  the  South  could  adequately  support  her 
own  press  and  literature.  Said  Hammond,  after  having  given  a 
glowing  description  of  the  revivifying  effects  of  manufactures  upon 
his  state:  "I  am  not  conjuring  up  ideal  visions  to  excite  the 
imagination.  All  these  things  have  actually  been  done.  They  have 
been,  in  our  own  times,  and  under  our  own  eyes,  carried  out  and 
made  legible,  living,  self-multiplying  and  giant-growing  facts  in 
Old  England  and  New  England;  and  they  have  been  mainly  ac- 
complished by  the  incalculable  profits  which  their  genius  and 
enterprise  have  realized  on  the  product  of  our  labor."** 

But  the  prophets  of  a  new  order  met  prejudices  against  manu- 
factures which  they  could  not  wholly  dispel.  Politicians  had  too 
often  described  the  cities  and  factory  towns  of  the  North  as 
hotbeds  of  poverty,  ignorance,  vice,  crime,  and  unreligion,  the 
seats  of  abolition  and  the  numerous  isms  with  which  the  land  was 

"The  best  examples  of  the  home  market  argument  are  in  Barnard,  op.  cit., 
and  an  article,  ''Should  the  Loom  Come  to  the  Cotton,  or  the  Cotton  Go  to  the 
Loom?"  Western  Journal  and  Civilian,  I,  319-332. 

"DeBotv's  Review,  VIII,  516.  See  also  Fitzhugh,  Sociology  /or  the  South, 
chs.  XII-XV. 


51  ]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  5! 

afflicted.  Manufactures  had  been  too  frequently  described  as  in- 
compatible with  liberty,  freedom,  culture,  and  virtue,  and  agri- 
culture glorified  as  the  only  industry  capable  of  producing  a 
liberty-loving  and  chivalrous  race.65  Often  the  proponents  of  di- 
versification considered  it  necessary  to  give  the  assurance  that  no 
large  towns,  but  only  villages,  would  be  created,  and  that  there 
was  no  danger  of  manufactures  ever  predominating  over  agricul- 
ture in  the  planting  states.66  Too,  it  must  be  noted,  there  was  a 
feeling  all  too  prevalent  in  the  South  that  manual  labor,  and  par- 
ticularly mechanical  labor,  was  degrading  and  beneath  the  dignity 
of  white  men.  Young  men  of  intelligence  and  ability,  who  might 
have  become  skilled  mechanics,  managers,  or  superintendents  of 
factories,  felt  that  they  would  lose  caste  by  entering  a  cotton  fac- 
tory. Such  employment  was  less  becoming  gentlemen  than  agri- 
culture, the  professions,  or  even  the  mercantile  business.  The  dig- 
nity of  labor  had  to  be  proclaimed.  Few  more  scathing  denuncia- 
tions of  Southern  social  standards,  as  well  as  of  the  inertia, 
lethargy,  and  lack  of  foresight  of  Southern  men,  can  be  found 
than  some  of  those  uttered  by  Southern  men  who  were  trying  to 
point  the  path  of  progress  and  urge  their  people  along  it.67 

One  argument  in  behalf  of  manufactures  by  no  means  infre- 
quently used  was  that  they  would  give  employment  to  the  "poor 
whites."  The  poor  whites  were  the  non-slaveholding  whites  of  the 
black  belts,  the  hill  country,  and  the  pine  barrens.  Some  of  them, 
upon  worn  out  and  abandoned  plantations  or  their  small  hill 
farms,  engaged  in  agriculture  in  feeble  competition  with  the 
planters.  Others  obtained  a  precarious  subsistence  by  doing  oc- 
casional jobs  for  the  planters,  by  hunting  and  fishing,  by  begging 
or  stealing  from  the  slaveholders,  or  by  trading  with  the  slaves 
and  inducing  them  to  plunder  for  their  benefit.  They  were  not 
employed  by  the  planters  to  work  in  the  cotton  fields,  and  would 
have  been  unwilling  to  work  with  the  slaves  had  opportunity  been 
afforded  them.  As  a  class  they  produced  less  than  they  consumed, 

**DeBow's  Review,  VIII,  508;  XI,  127;  XII,  49;  XVII,  178;  So.  Quar.  Rev., 
VIII,  142. 

"DeBow's  Review,  VIII,  522;  XI,  130-132. 

"So.  Lit.  Mess.,  XX,  513-28  (Sept.,  1854);  So.  Quar.  Rev.,  VIII,  460  ff.; 
DeBow's  Review,  VIII,  134,  506;  XVII,  363;  XIX,  614;  XXIV,  383;  Barnard, 
op."  c it.,  23;  Aaron  V.  Brown,  Speeches,  Congressional  and  Polifical,  and  other 
Writings,  668. 


52        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-l86l      [52 

and,  therefore,  were  a  burden  upon  society.  Their  ignorance  was 
as  general  as  their  poverty;  vice  and  crime  were  common  among 
them.  Their  number  is  difficult  to  estimate.  In  1849,  Governor 
Hammond  estimated  at  50,000  the  number  of  those  in  South  Car- 
olina whose  industry  was  not  "adequate  to  procure  them,  honest- 
ly, such  support  as  every  white  person  in  this  country  is,  and 
feels  himself  entitled  to."68  William  Gregg  put  the  number  at 
125,000,  more  than  one-third  of  the  white  population  of  the 
state.69  The  number  in  other  Southern  states  was  probably  some- 
what less  in  proportion  to  population.  Charles  T.  James  said 
there  were  thousands  of  poor  whites.70  James  Martin,  of  northern 
Alabama,  spoke  of  a  "large  poor  population,  almost  totally  with- 
out employment."71  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine  referred  to 
them  as  a  "mass  of  unemployed  white  labor."72 

Many  of  the  advocates  of  manufactures  believed  the  employ- 
ment of  this  class  of  unfortunates  desirable  from  every  viewpoint. 
They  were  said  to  be  more  than  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
opportunity  to  work,  even  at  most  moderate  wages,  at  labor 
deemed  respectable  for  white  persons;  and,  when  so  employed,  to 
quickly  assume  the  industrious  habits  of  Northern  operatives.  By 
employment  in  factories,  they  would  be  brought  together  in  vil- 
lages, where  the  influence  of  church  and  school  could  reach  them. 
In  this  way  and  only  in  this  way  could  they  be  elevated  to  a  state 
of  comparative  comfort  and  independence  and  social  responsibil- 
ity. From  the  viewpoint  of  the  prosperity  and  power  of  the  com- 
munity at  large,  the  employment  of  the  poor  whites  would  be  of 
incalculable  benefit:  it  would  transform  thousands  of  them  into 
productive  citizens  and  enormously  increase  the  wealth  of  the 
region.  The  number  of  this  class  in  some  states  was  said  to  be 
sufficient  to  work  up  into  goods  all  the  cotton  grown  therein.  This 
product  would  be  a  clear  gain;  for  the  employment  of  the  poor 
whites  in  factories  would  withdraw  little  or  no  labor  from  the 
production  of  the  raw  material.  How,  it  was  asked,  could  the 
South  keep  pace  with  the  North  in  the  race  for  power  and  wealth, 

"Df Bow's  Review,  VIII,  518. 
"Ibid.,  XI,  133. 
'"Ibid.,  VIII,  558. 
"Ibid.,  XXIV,  383. 
"XXII,  649. 


53  ]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  53 

when  so  large  a  part  of  the  total  possible  labor  force  was  com- 
paratively idle?73 

Many  thoughtful  Southerners  regretted  that  so  much  of  the 
capital,  enterprise,  and  intelligence  in  the  South  was  employed  in 
directing  slave  labor  to  the  almost  complete  neglect  of  a  large 
part  of  the  white  population.74  Thomas  P.  Devereaux,  a  large 
slaveholder  of  North  Carolina,  thought  it  the  great  evil  of  slav- 
ery, that  it  rendered  a  mass  of  white  producing  ability  more  than 
unproductive;  and  there  is  evidence  indicating  that  many  shared 
his  opinion.75  But  whether  slavery  was  responsible  for  the  exis- 
tence of  the  poor  white  class  or  not,  its  opponents  in  the  North 
and  elsewhere  charged  it  with  that  responsibility,  and  it  would 
seem  that  the  defenders  of  the  institution  should  have  welcomed 
every  opportunity  for  remedying  the  evil  and  proving  the  charge 
unfounded.  Too  many  slaveholders,  however,  opposed  manufac- 
tures on  the  very  ground  that  they  would  aid  in  developing  a 
class  consciousness  among  white  labor,  which  would  be  hostile  to 
slavery. 

In  fact,  it  was  already  evident  that  such  a  class  consciousness 
was  developing,  particularly  in  the  cities  and  towns.  It  manifested 
itself  in  a  movement  to  drive  the  slaves  from  the  cities  and  from 
mechanical  employments,  and  restrict  them  to  agriculture.  In 
1849,  C.  G.  Memminger  wrote  Hammond  that  the  opinion  was 
gaining  ground  in  Charleston  and  even  in  the  low  country,  that 
slaves  should  be  excluded  from  mechanical  pursuits,  and  their 
places  filled  by  whites;  and  that  there  would  soon  be  a  formidable 
party  on  the  subject.76  Several  years  earlier,  a  bill  had  been  drafted 
and  presented  to  the  North  Carolina  Legislature  to  limit  the  em- 
ployment of  slaves  in  mechanical  callings,  but  had  been  met  and 
defeated  by  the  objection  that  it  interfered  with  the  rights  of  the 
slave  owners;  an  act  of  the  Georgia  Legislature,  December  27, 
1845,  forbade  negro  mechanics  to  make  contracts.77  In  the  cities 
there  was  constant  friction  between  the  white  stevedores,  porters, 

"See  notes  68-72. 
"De  Bow's  Review,  XI,  135. 

"Devereaux  to  Hammond,  April  17,  1850,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers.   Cf.  So. 
Quar.  Rev.,  VIII,  449  if.;  XXVI,  446. 

"Memminger  to  Hammond,  April  28,  1849,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 
"Devereaux  to  Hammond,  April  17,  1850,  ibid. 


54        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1       [54 

draymen,  and  mechanics  and  the  negroes.  78  Everywhere  there 
was  opposition  to  slaves  learning  trades.79 

The  slaveholders  feared  this  self-assertion  of  white  labor;  for, 
as  Memminger  put  it,  were  the  negro  mechanics  and  operatives 
driven  from  the  cities,  whites  would  take  their  places,  everyone 
would  have  a  vote,  and  all  would  be  abolitionists.  Those  urging 
manufactures,  he  thought,  were  aiding  and  abetting  the  free  labor 
party,  which  was  the  only  one  from  which  danger  to  slavery  was 
to  be  apprehended.80  General  A.  H.  Brisbane,  who  was  leading 
in  the  agitation  in  behalf  of  manufactures  in  South  Carolina,  and 
who  was  instrumental  in  founding  a  mechanics'  institute  in 
Charleston,  complained  of  the  opposition  he  met  at  every  turn 
from  the  slaveholders  of  Charleston  and  the  seaboard.81 

On  the  other  hand,  some  slaveholders  thought  more  danger  was 
to  be  apprehended  from  the  poor  whites  under  existing  conditions 
than  if  they  should  be  brought  together  in  cotton  factories  with 
constant  employment  and  adequate  remuneration.  In  the  latter 
case,  they  would  see  that  their  occupation  depended  upon  the 
preservation  of  a  system  necessary  for  the  production  of  cotton. 
In  the  opinion  of  Thomas  P.  Devereaux,  if  a  notion  should  arise 
among  the  poor  whites  that  slavery  barred  their  way  to  the  full  en- 
joyment of  the  fruits  of  their  labor,  deprived  them  of  a  market  for 
their  produce,  and  hindered  the  advancement  of  their  children, 
the  slaveholders  would  have  an  enemy  in  their  midst  far  more 
to  be  feared  than  abolition  preachers.82  Brisbane  believed  it  bet- 
ter for  white  labor  to  develop  in  the  South,  where  it  could  see  its 
dependence  upon  black  labor,  than  in  the  North,  where  it  could 
not,  and  would,  therefore,  be  the  fanatical  enemy  of  slavery. 

Over  against  the  discussion  of  the  desirability  of  providing  em- 
ployment for  the  poor  whites  must  be  set  the  discussion  of  the 

~'*DeBow's  Review,  XXVI,  600,  extract  from  the  Report  of  the  Committee 
on  Negro  Population  of  the  South  Carolina  Legislature;  ibid.,  XXX,  67-77. 

"F.  L.  Olmsted,  Cotton  Kingdom,  II,  98;  Lyell,  A  Second  Visit  to  the 
United  States,  II,  36,  81-83.  And  see  below,  pp.  218-220. 

""Memminger  to  Hammond,  April  28,   1849,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 

"Brisbane  to  Hammond,  Oct.  8,  1849,  ibid.;  cf.  Gregg  to  Hammond,  Dec. 
I,  1848. 

"Devereaux  to  Hammond,  April  17,  1850,  ibid.  Cf.  W.  B.  Hodgson,  of 
Georgia,  to  Hammond,  Nov.  20,  1850,  ibid.;  So.  Quar.  Rev.,  XXVI,  447;  DeBow's 
Review,  III,  188;  VIII,  25.  See  also  Fitzhugh,  Sociology  for  the  South,  147. 


55]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  55 

practicability  of  employing  slaves  in  factories.  During  the  period 
of  overproduction  of  cotton  there  was  a  belief  that  slave  labor 
engaged  in  producing  the  staple  was  redundant,  and  that  it  was 
desirable  to  divert  some  of  it  to  other  industries.  The  division  of 
slave  labor  between  the  factory  and  the  field  would  increase  the 
profits  of  agriculture  and  enhance  the  value  of  slaves.83  Slave 
labor  was  tried  in  several  cotton  factories,  notably  the  DeKalb 
and  the  Saluda  factory,  both  of  South  Carolina,  and  the  alleged 
success  of  the  experiments  was  cited  as  demonstrating  that,  should 
agriculture  become  oversupplied  with  labor,  manufacturing  would 
open  channels  to  draw  away  the  surplus.84  From  some  of  the 
comments  made,  it  is  hard  to  escape  the  conclusion*  that  many 
Southerners  were  interested  in  manufactures  only  so  long  as  it  ap- 
peared possible  to  conduct  them  with  slave  labor;  when  exper- 
ience finally  demonstrated  the  superiority  of  white  labor,  their 
interest  declined.  Other  men  opposed  from  the  start  the  employ- 
ment of  slaves  in  factories.  It  would  weaken  slavery;  for,  as  one 
said,  "Whenever  a  slave  is  made  a  mechanic,  he  is  more  than 
half  freed ....  "86  Moreover,  were  slaves  employed,  whites  could 
not  be;  for  whites  would  not  work  side  by  side  or  in  competition 
with  slaves. 

The  movement  to  bring  the  spindles  to  the  cotton  was  almost 
synchronous  with  the  period  of  acrimonious  sectional  controversy 
over  the  extension  of  slavery  which  began  with  the  annexation  of 
Texas  and  continued  until  the  general  acceptance  of  the  Com- 
promise of  1850  gave  a  temporary  respite.  Southern  men  were 
becoming  dismayed  at  the  growing  strength  and  vigor  of  the 
attacks  upon  slavery.  The  growing  disparity  of  the  sections  in 
numbers  and  power  was  toe  striking  and  too  ominous  not  to  excite 
most  serious  concern.  The  old  political  alliance  of  South  and  West 
could  no  longer  be  depended  upon,  and  especially  not  in  the  case 
of  the  slavery  issue,  to  thwart  the  antagonistic  policies  of  the 
North.  Leaders,  from  the  great  Calhoun  down,  cast  about  for 
means  of  maintaining  Southern  rights  and  preserving  Southern 
equality  in  the  Union.  A  large  minority  of  the  people  in  the  South, 

"'Richmond  Whig,  Sept.  19,  1851;  DeBow's  Review,  XII,  182-5. 
"Richmond  Enquirer,  Aug.   30,   1850;   Charleston  Mercury,  May  24,   1849; 
Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXIII,  575;  DeBow's  Review,  IX,  432;  XI,  319. 
"Ibid.,  VIII,  518. 


56        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1       [56 

in  one  state  a  majority,  were  convinced  by  1850  that  the  Southern 
states  should  withdraw  from  the  Union.  Widespread  discussion  of 
secession  caused  consideration  to  be  given  to  the  preparedness  of 
the  South  for  separate  nationality.  The  intemperateness  of  the 
sectional  quarrel  and,  especially,  the  necessity  for  augmenting  the 
political  power  of  the  South,  whether  to  maintain  her  rights  in  the 
Union  or  her  independence  out  of  it,  gave  a  powerful  impetus  to 
all  movements  for  promoting  the  economic  development  of  the 
South,  including  the  encouragement  of  manufacturing. 

The  arguments  in  favor  of  encouraging  home  manufactures 
which  were  suggested  by  political  necessities  or  purposes  took 
several  forms.  One  frequently  employed  was  well  illustrated  by 
an  editorial  in  the  Richmond  Dispatch.  After  one  of  the  instances 
of  interference  with  the  execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  by  the 
people  of  Boston,  the  Dispatch  estimated  the  value  of  the  Boston- 
made  shoes  used  in  Virginia,  and  suggested  that  Virginia  people 
should  manufacture  the  shoes  used  in  the  state.  "That  it  is  time 
for  Virginia  to  think  of  doing  some  such  thing  the  high-handed 
measures  lately  adopted  in  Boston  sufficiently  prove.  As  long  as 
we  are  dependent  upon  these  people,  they  will  insult  us  at  pleas- 
ure. Let  us  cut  loose  from  them  thus  far  at  least."86  The  reason- 
ing was  weak:  If  Boston  people  insulted  the  Virginians  while  yet 
the  latter  were  good  customers,  would  they  not  more  readily  do 
so  should  the  Virginians  cease  to  patronize  Boston  shoe  factories? 

More  logical  was  the  reasoning  of  J.  D.  B.  DeBow  and  others 
who,  while  recognizing  that  Southern  enterprise  might  not  con- 
vince the  enemies  of  slavery,  said  it  would  prepare  the  South  for 
the  crisis  which  they  professed  to  believe  was  inevitable.  "We 
have  long  ago  thought,"  wrote  DeBow,  "that  the  duty  of  the  peo- 
ple consisted  more  in  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  their  industry, 
resources  and  enterprise,  than  in  bandying  constitutional  argu- 
ments with  their  opponents,  or  in  rhetorical  flourishes  about  the 
sanctity  of  the  federal  compact.  This  is  the  course  of  action, 
which,  though  it  may  not  convince,  will  at  least  prepare  us  for  this 
crisis  which,  it  needs  no  seer's  eye  to  see,  will,  in  the  event,  be 
precipitated  upon  us  by  the  reckless  fanaticism  or  ignorant  zeal 
of  the  'cordon  of  free  States'  surrounding  us  on  every  hand.  'Light 
up  the  torches  of  industry,'  was  the  advice  of  old  Dr.  Franklin  to  his 
countrymen,  on  discovering  that  all  hope  from  the  British  cab- 

"Quoted  in  De Bow's  Review,  XI,  82. 


57]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  57 

inet  had  fled  forever.  Light  up  the  torches,  say  we,  on  every  hill- 
top, by  the  side  of  every  stream,  from  the  shores  of  the  Delaware 
to  the  furthest  extremes  of  the  Rio  Grande — from  the  Ohio  to  the 
capes  of  Florida."87 

Another  and  more  frequently  used  argument  was  that  diversi- 
fied industries  would  be  favorable  to  a  more  rapid  growth  of 
population  in  the  South,  and  population  was  necessary  to  political 
power.  The  North  had  been  growing  more  rapidly  in  population 
and  political  influence,  it  was  said,  because  immigration  from 
abroad  had  gone  almost  exclusively  to  that  section.  This  was  not 
because  slavery  had  repelled  immigration,  but  because  the  South 
had  offered  no  inducements.  Southern  agriculture  was  ill  adapted 
to  European  labor.  And  what  other  industry  had  the  South?  The 
construction  of  railroads  had  attracted  a  few  Irish  and  German 
laborers;  but  the  demand  was  insufficient  to  bring  a  great  number. 
Let  industry  be  diversified,  however,  and  the  South  would  get  a 
share  of  the  influx  from  abroad.  Northern  people  might  come 
South.  Emigration  from  the  Southern  states  would  be  checked. 
The  population  of  the  North  would  then  increase  less  rapidly, 
that  of  the  South  more  rapidly;  the  relative  political  strength  of 
the  South  would  thus  be  preserved.88 

Not  all,  however,  considered  immigration  desirable.  Many 
feared  that  immigrants  would  be  hostile  to  slavery.  The  diversi- 
ficationists  attempted  to  overcome  these  fears.  The  immigrants 
could  be  assimilated  and  converted  into  defenders  of  Southern 
institutions,  they  said.  In  proof  of  this  view  they  pointed  to  many 
men  who  had  come  from  the  North,  and  were  among  the  staunch- 
est  defenders  of  the  South.  They  further  contended  that  a  large 
foreign  element  in  the  North  was  a  greater  menace  to  slavery  than 
such  an  element  in  the  South  would  be;  for  in  the  latter  it  would 
become  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  the  institution.89  Just  as 
does  the  fear  among  the  slaveholders  of  the  development  of  a  class 

"DeBow's  Review,  IX,  120.  Cf.  ibid.,  IV,  211;  XI,  680;  William  Gregg  to 
Seabrook,  May  10,  1850,  Whitemarsh  B.  Seabrook  Papers;  Richmond  Whig, 
Feb.  12,  1851. 

"Barnard,  Oration  Delivered,  before  the  Citizens  of  Tuscaloosa,  Alamaba, 
July  4-th,  1851,  29;  DeBow's  Review,  VIII,  558-60;  XI,  319;  Hunt's  Merchants' 
Magazine,  XXI,  498. 

"Barnard,  loc.  cit.;  A.  H.  Brisbane  to  J.  H.  Hammond,  Oct.  8,  1849,  /.  H. 
Hammond  Papers. 


58        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84<>l86l       [58 

consciousness  among  the  native  white  labor,  this  fear  of  immigra- 
tion illustrates  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  creating  a  public  senti- 
ment in  the  South  favorable  to  progress  along  other  lines  than 
agriculture. 

During  the  secession  movement  of  1849-1852,  which  has  been 
alluded  to,  many  Unionists  supported  the  efforts  to  develop  South- 
ern manufactures,  promote  direct  trade,  construct  internal  im- 
provements, and  otherwise  build  up  the  South  in  an  economic 
way,  as  a  substitute  for  disunion.  Their  position  was  based  upon 
two  chains  of  reasoning:  (i)  Economic  regeneration  of  the  South 
would  tend  to  preserve  the  political  equilibrium  of  the  sections 
and  thus  enable  the  Southern  states  to  maintain  their  rights 
without  forsaking  the  Union.  (2)  The  basic  causes  for  the  war 
being  waged  against  the  Union  were  economic  discontent  and  the 
belief  that  the  Union  had  been  unequal  in  its  material  benefits. 
The  Unionists,  in  so  far  as  they  admitted  Southern  "decline,"  at- 
tributed it  to  causes  not  connected  with  the  operation  of  the  gov- 
ernment or  the  Union.  Successful  programs  of  economic  improve- 
ment would  allay  discontent  and  prove  their  contentions  in  re- 
gard to  the  advantages  of  the  Union.  This  aspect  of  the  political 
basis  for  the  agitation  in  behalf  of  manufactures  will  be  discussed 
in  somewhat  greater  detail  elsewhere. 

Although  the  discussion  of  the  desirability  of  diversifying 
Southern  industry  by  no  means  ceased  about  1852,  as  we  shall 
see,  the  active  agitation  in  behalf  of  "bringing  the  spindles  to 
the  cotton"  may  be  said  to  have  come  to  an  end  about  that 
date.  The  explanation  of  this  lies  partly  in  the  fact  that  the 
comparative  prosperity  of  cotton  culture  during  the  fifties  weak- 
ened the  force  of  the  economic  arguments  for  diversification,90 
but  chiefly  in  the  fact  that  the  agitation  no  longer  was  encouraged 
by  reports  of  large  profits  and  the  erection  of  new  factories. 

Accounts  of  new  enterprises  continued  to  appear  throughout 
1851,  and  then  ceased  almost  abruptly.  In  their  stead  there  began 
to  appear  reports  of  reduced  profits,  failures,  and,  later,  explana- 
tions for  the  sudden  collapse  of  a  movement  so  auspiciously 
begun.  It  was  not  until  the  later  years  of  the  decade  that  the  press 
again  spoke  optimistically  of  the  progress  of  cotton  manufactures 
in  the  South.  William  Gregg,  who  knew  more  about  this  sub- 

"See  ch.  VIII. 


59]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  59 

ject  than  any  other  man,  writing  on  the  very  eve  of  the  war,  stated 
that  all  the  progress  made  in  cotton  manufacturing  in  the  South 
during  fifteen  years  was  made  in  "about  five  years — from  1845 
to  1850."  The  meager  statistics  available  tend  to  sustain  this 
judgment.  According  to  the  estimates  of  contemporary  reviewers 
of  the  cotton  trade,  the  Southern  states  consumed  a  quantity  of 
raw  cotton  in  the  year  1849-1850  which  was  not  materially  exceed- 
ed until  i859-i86o.91  During  the  years  1850  and  1851  the  cotton 
manufacturing  industry  was  suffering  a  depression.  It  is  probable 
that,  could  factories  newly  built  or  building  in  1850  have  operated 
at  full  capacity,  the  total  consumption  for  the  year  would  have 
equalled  that  of  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  Civil  War. 
The  United  States  censuses  for  1840,  1850,  and  1860  may  be  con- 
sidered sufficiently  reliable  to  show  general  tendencies.  The  value 
of  the  product  of  cotton  factories  in  states  south  of  Maryland  was 
$1,912,215  in  1840,  $5,665,362  in  1850,  and  $8,145,067  in  1860. 
Thus,  while  the  value  of  the  product  nearly  trebled  between  1840 
and  1850,  it  increased  only  about  43  per  cent  during  the  following 
decade.  The  value  of  the  output  of  cotton  manufactures  in  the 
United  States  as  a  whole  was  $46,350,453  in  1840,  $65,501,687  in 
1850,  and  $115,681,774  in  1860,  an  increase  of  41  per  cent  during 
the  first  decade  and  76.6  per  cent  during  the  second.92 

The  progress  made  in  cotton  manufacturing  in  the  South  during 
the  18405  must  be  attributed  chiefly  to  the  unprofitableness  of 
cotton  culture  during  the  same  period  and  to  the  conviction  of  men 
with  capital  that  manufacturing  would  yield  a  higher  rate  of  inter- 
est upon  money  invested.  In  some  cases,  it  is  true,  subscription  to 
the  stock  of  cotton  manufacturing  companies  seems  to  have  been 
made  by  public  spirited  citizens  prompted  more  by  a  desire  to 
benefit  their  communities  or  states  or  to  advance  the  cause  of 
the  South  than  by  the  desire  for  profit.  To  some  degree,  too,  the 
agitation  was  instrumental  in  securing  the  liberalization  of  laws 
affecting  joint  stock  companies,  and  may  have  contributed  indi- 
rectly to  the  development  of  manufactures.  The  cessation  of 
progress  about  1851  cannot  be  attributed  to  any  abatement  of 

"See  Appendix,  Table  IV,  for  estimates  of  the  cotton  consumed  in  the  North, 
South,  and  West,  1839-1861. 

"Compendium  of  the  Sixth  Census,  361;  Compendium  of  the  Seventh  Cen- 
sus, 1 80;  Eighth  Census,  Manufactures,  Introduction,  p.  xii. 


60         ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861       [60 

interest  on  the  part  of  the  public.  Some  of  the  causes  for  de- 
pression and  failure  in  the  South  affected  New  England  factories 
as  well.  Others  were  peculiar  to  the  South,  and  serve  to  illustrate 
the  difficulties  which  had  to  be  overcome  there,  perhaps  among 
any  agricultural  people,  before  new  industries  could  become  firmly 
established. 

One  cause  of  the  depression  in  the  cotton  manufacturing  indus- 
try was  the  sharp  rise  in  the  price  of  raw  cotton  from  7  cents  in 
June  to  ii  cents  in  October,  1849,  double  the  price  of  October, 
1848.  With  the  exception  of  the  year  1851-1852,  the  price  of  cot- 
ton remained  comparatively  high  until  the  Civil  War.  With  the 
rise  in  price,  the  quantity  of  cotton  taken  for  Northern  mills  fell 
from  503,429  bales  in  1848-1849  to  465,702  in  1849-1850  and  386,- 
429  the  following  year,  while  the  estimates  of  consumption  of  the 
South  and  West  for  the  same  three  years  were  130,000,  137,000, 
and  99,000  bales,  respectively.93  To  add  to  the  hardships  occa- 
sioned by  high  priced  raw  material,  there  had  been  a  general 
fall  in  the  prices  of  cotton  goods,  caused  partly  by  the  recent  rapid 
extensions  of  cotton  manufactures  in  the  United  States  and  partly, 
it  was  said,  by  the  increased  quantities  of  English  goods  put  upon 
the  American  market  after  the  Walker  tariff  of  1846  had  become 
effective.94 

Strangely,  the  factories  of  the  cotton  states  seem  to  have  weath- 
ered the  first  year  or  two  of  hard  times  better  than  factories 
farther  north,  and  Southern  men  submitted  the  fact  as  evidence 
of  the  superior  advantages  of  those  states  for  cotton  manufactur- 
ing.95 In  the  autumn  of  1850,  Joseph  H.  Lumpkin,  of  Georgia, 
said  that  he  knew  of  no  bankruptcy  in  any  cotton  company  in  the 
South;  while  seventy-one  mills  were  reported  idle  within  thirty 

"3See  Appendix,  Table  IV. 

"Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXIII,  595  ff.,  Dec.  1850;  XXV,  465. 

mDeBow's  Review,  X,  93,  143.  Virginia  and  Maryland  factories  did  not 
escape  the  hard  times.  A  convention  of  manufacturing  interests  meeting  in  Rich- 
mond, late  in  1850,  reported  that -of  the  54,000  spindles  in  that  state,  7,000  were 
running  at  three-fourths  time,  8,000  at  one-third  time,  22,000  at  full  time  but 
three-fourths  wages,  while  the  remainder  were  either  idle  or  practically  so;  the 
whole  averaged  about  one-half  time.  In  Maryland  the  conditions  were  worse. 
Of  28  factories,  8  were  idle,  and  only  2  were  running  full  time.  Hunt's  Merchants' 
Magazine,  XXIV,  262.  The  iron  industry  as  well  as  the  cotton  manufacturing 
industry  was  complaining  of  depression.  The  reason  assigned  was  English  and 
Scotch  competition. 


6l]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  6l 

miles  of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  and  numerous  others  in  the 
North  were  either  idle  or  upon  short  time,  some  Southern  com- 
panies were  declaring  a  dividend  of  10  per  cent.96  The  Savannah 
News  reported  that  Southern  factories  were  prosperous,  while 
some  Northern  mills  were  closing;  and  added,  "These  facts  prove 
what  we  have  often  asserted,  that  we  have  a  decided  advantage 
over  the  North  in  the  business  of  manufacturing  yarns  and 
coarse  cotton  goods."97  Thomas  Prentice  Kettell,  of  New  York, 
wrote:  "It  is  the  transition  of  the  seat  of  manufactures  from  the 
North  and  East  to  the  South  and  West,  under  which  northern 
manufacturing  capital  is  laboring."98  But  factories  in  the  cotton 
belt  did  fail  during  the  years  1850,  1851,  and  1852,  establish- 
ments changed  hands  at  much  less  than  the  original  cost,  and  the 
profits  of  all  were  greatly  reduced.  Moreover,  Southern  factories 
revived  much  more  slowly  than  those  of  New  England.  Many  of 
them  dragged  out  a  sickly  existence  until  a  year  or  two  before  the 
war,  when  they  again  became  prosperous.  The  example  of  these 
factories  discouraged  further  investments  of  capital.99 

MDeBow's  Review,  XII,  46.  (From  an  address  delivered  before  the  South 
Carolina  Institute  at  its  Second  Annual  Fair,  Nov.  19,  1850.)  As  late  as  1855, 
William  Gregg  wrote:  "With  the  exception  of  the  Saluda  company  and  the 
Charleston  factory,  there  have  been  no  positive  failures  and  very  few  embarrassed 
concerns  [in  South  Carolina],  and  they  labored  under  most  of  the  defects  that 
I  have  named  as  elements  of  embarrassment.  There  was  no  failure  among  the 
Georgia  factories  during  the  terrible  pressure  of  1850  and  '51;  they  are  now,  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  doing  well.  Those  in  the  vicinity  of  Augusta,  ten  miles 
off,  are  paying  20  to  30  per  cent.  The  DeKalb  factory,  near  Camden,  in  our 
state,  is  making  15  per  cent.;  Vaucluse,  just  above  us,  is  making  money.  .  .  ." 
The  net  earnings  of  the  Graniteville  Company  were  reported  at  8  per  cent  in 
1850,  iil/2  per  cent  in  1853,  and  18  per  cent  in  1854.  Report  of  William  Gregg, 
President  of  the  Graniteville  Manufacturing  Co.,  1855,  quoted  in  DeBow's  Re- 
view, XVIII,  788. 

"Quoted  in  ibid.,  XI,  322  (Sept.,  1851). 

"Ibid.,  XI,  641.  It  is  not  probable  that  Southern  mills  suffered  less  than 
New  England  mills  making  the  same  class  of  goods. 

This  was  notably  true  of  the  failures  at  Augusta,  Ga.  There  canals  had 
been  dug,  and,  it  was  supposed,  enough  water  power  secured  to  drive  the  spindles 
of  a  second  Lowell.  Factories  sprang  up  on  a  large  scale.  A  long  chain  of  changes 
and  reverses  followed.  Ibid.,  XXVIII,  483.  William  Gregg  wrote,  in  1860: 
"The  failure  of  the  Augusta  Mills  has  done  more  to  put  back  the  progress  of 
manufacturing  at  the  South  than  any  other  failure  that  has  taken  place."  Ibid., 
XXIX,  229. 


62         ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [62 

Cotton  factories  in  the  South  experienced  difficulties  other  than 
the  high  price  of  raw  material  and  the  low  prices  of  goods.  10°  The 
factories  were  often  cheaply  constructed,  and  the  best  machinery 
was  not  always  provided.  Several  of  them  employed  steam  power, 
which  proved  too  costly  and  put  them  under  a  big  handicap  from 
the  start.  Local  pride  in  many  cases  had  much  to  do  with  raising 
capital  and,  consequently,  in  selecting  sites.  As  a  result  the  mills 
were  often  injudiciously  located  with  respect  to  health,  steady 
motive  power,  and  marketing  of  goods.  The  labor  problem  was 
a  difficult  one.  Negro  labor  required  too  much  capital,  if  bought, 
and  proved  unsatisfactory  in  any  case.101  The  whites,  though 
they  worked  for  lower  wages  than  the  mill  operatives  of  the 
North,  from  ignorance  and  long  habits  of  indolence,  were  difficult 
to  train  and  control.102  Because  of  the  unskilled  labor,  Southern 
factories  required  more  efficient  superintendents  than  Northern 
factories,  but  did  not  pay  sufficiently  high  salaries  to  command 
them.  (The  superintendents  were  in  most  cases  from  the  North.) 
There  was  the  difficulty,  also,  of  forcing  the  products  of  infant  in- 
dustries upon  a  market  already  supplied  with  Northern  and 
English  goods;103  and  there  is  evidence  that  New  England  manu- 
facturers resorted  to  quite  modern  methods  in  meeting  threatened 
competition  from  the  South.  The  story  was  told  of  a  Georgia 
factory  that  put  upon  the  market  an  article  known  as  "Georgia 
Stripes,"  which  proved  very  popular.  New  England  mills  imitated 
it  with  a  cheaper  article,  and  drove  it  from  the  market.  The  fact- 

100For  discussions  of  the  causes  for  failure  of  Southern  factories  see:  (i)  Re- 
port of  William  Gregg,  President  of  the  Graniteville  Manufacturing  Co.,  1855 
(pamphlet),  also  in  DeBow's,  XVIII,  777-91.  (2)  Extract  from  a  letter  of  James 
Montgomery,  an  English  manufacturer.  Ibid.,  XXVI,  95  ff.  (3)  Letter  from  James 
Martin,  a  successful  cotton  manufacturer  of  Florence,  Alabama.  Ibid.,  XXIV, 
382-6.  (4)  Hunt's  Merchant's  Magazine,  XLII,  376  f.  (5)  William  Gregg. 
"Southern  Patronage  to  Southern  Imports  and  Domestic  Industry,"  in  DeBow's, 
XXIX,  77-83,  225-32,  494-500,  623-31,  771-8;  XXX,  102-4,  216-23. 

101Russell,  Robert,  North  America,  295. 

10JSee  Ingle,  Edward,  Southern  Sidelights,  74  ff.,  for  a  discussion  of  wages 
paid  in  the  South.  The  best  success  was  had  where  provision  was  made  for  hous- 
ing the  employees,  enforcing  temperance,  and  providing  schools  and  religious 
instruction,  as  at  Graniteville,  S.  C.,  and  Prattsville,  Ala.  DeBow's  Review, 
XVIII,  777-90. 

10*Colwell,  Stephen,  The  Five  Cotton  States  and  New  York  (pamphlet, 
i860). 


63]  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  DIVERSIFICATION  OF  INDUSTRY  63 

ory  then  turned  to  "Georgia  Plains."  Samples  were  sent  North; 
and  soon  the  market  was  flooded  with  Yankee  Georgia  Plains.104 
Southern  manufacturers  selected  sound  raw  material  and  made 
goods  of  high  quality;  but  their  Southern  customers  apparently 
preferred  low  prices  to  quality,  which  was  more  difficult  to  recog- 
nize. And,  despite  statements  of  Southern  writers  to  the  contrary, 
the  probabilities  are  that  the  Yankee  goods  were  better  in  propor- 
tion to  price.105  Again,  the  idea  was  too  prevalent  that  an  effort 
should  be  made  to  supply  the  local  demand,  and  that  a  little  of 
everything  should  be  made;  it  would  have  been  better  to  special- 
ize. The  consumer  seemed  to  prefer  goods  from  a  distance  to 
those  of  home  manufacture.  "Yankee  made,"  "made  in  the 
North,"  or  "just  from  New  York,"  were  advertisements  which 
appealed  to  the  purchaser.  Manufacturers  frequently  complained 
of  the  want  of  home  patronage;  but,  except  in  times  of  unusual 
sectional  bitterness,  appeals  to  local  pride  or  patriotism  were  rath- 
er ineffective. 

One  of  the  chief  obstacles  to  the  success  of  Southern  establish- 
ments was  the  lack  of  sufficient  capital.  The  factories  were  too 
often  begun  with  insufficient  capital,  were  in  debt  from  the  start, 
and  maintained  no  reserve  of  cash  to  enable  them  to  buy  raw 
material  when  the  price  was  low  and  hold  back  the  product  from 
a  depressed  market.  Frequent  items  are  met  in  Southern  papers 
telling  of  consignments  of  goods  to  Northern  cities.  The  papers 
of  the  South  were  inclined  to  boast  of  such  incidents  without  stop- 
ping to  inquire  the  reasons  for  their  occurrence.106  Because  of 
insufficient  capital,  the  cotton  manufacturers  of  the  cotton  states, 
as  were  the  tobacco  manufacturers  of  Virginia,  were  constantly  in 
need  of  advances.  The  advances  could  most  readily  be  secured  by 
drawing  upon  agents  in  New  York  or  other  Northern  cities,  who 
sold  the  goods.  This  system  meant  that  the  goods  sometimes  had 

1MDeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  627. 

1MDaniel  Lord  said  the  Southern  people  "found  the  Yankee-made  a  better 
article,  and  deaf  to  all  appeals  to  their  Southern  pride  and  patriotism,  would 
have  it."  The  Effect  of  Secession  upon  the  Commercial  Relations  between  the 
North  and  the  South  and  upon  each  Section,  17.  Edwin  Heriot,  of  Charleston, 
said  the  established  opinion  in  the  South  was  that  Northern  articles  were  better, 
although  the  facts  were  just  the  reverse.  DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  218. 

MHunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXXI,  384.  Cf.  DeBow's  Review,  XI,  322; 
F.  L.  Olmsted,  Journey  in  the  Seaboard  Slave  States,  II,  184  (Putnam's,  1904). 


64        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1       [64 

to  be  sold  in  a  depressed  market  to  meet  the  drafts.  Southern 
manufacturers  could  not  sell  directly  to  Southern  merchants  or 
jobbers,  because  the  latter  bought  on  long  credit,  which  the  man- 
ufacturers were  unable  to  extend.  Both  mill  owners  and  merch- 
ants experienced  difficulty  in  procuring  loans  from  home  banks — 
whether  because  of  inadequacy  of  banking  facilities,  or,  as  some 
believed,  because  of  banking  policy,  we  will  not  pause  here  to 
inquire.107 


"'On  system  of  advances  and  long  credits  and  the  question  of  banking  facili- 
ties, in  the  South,  see  below,  pp.  100-107. 


CHAPTER  III 

ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN 
MOVEMENT,  1844-1852 

Discontent  with  the  economic  conditions  of  the  South,  absolute 
and  as  compared  with  those  of  other  sections,  found  expression 
in  the  direct  trade  conventions  of  1837-1839.  It  also  was  expressed 
in  the  agitation  in  behalf  of  the  diversification  of  industry.  While 
it  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  the  sole  or  even  primary  cause  for 
the  Southern  movement  which  culminated  in  secession,  its  influ- 
ence upon  that  movement  was  by  no  means  negligible,  especially 
in  its  earlier  stages. 

The  story  of  South  Carolina  nullification,  to  begin  no  farther 
back,  can  receive  only  a  brief  summary  here.  About  1825  and 
following  years,  strong  opposition  developed  in  the  older  planting 
states  of  the  South,  especially  South  Carolina,  to  the  policy  of  a 
high  and  protective  tariff  and  heavy  expenditures  for  internal  im- 
provements. The  basis  of  this  opposition  lay  not  only  in  the  fact 
that  the  protected  industries  and  the  internal  improvements  at 
government  expense  were  in  other  sections,  but  also  in  the  ap- 
parently, or  really,  impoverished  condition  of  the  old  planting  sec- 
tion compared  with  other  sections  of  the  Union.  In  no  state  were 
conditions  more  favorable  to  the  growth  of  discontent  than  in 
South  Carolina.  Industry  was  not  at  all  diversified.  The  price  of 
cotton  had  fallen.  Land  values  were  declining.  Population  was 
increasing  slowly,  if  at  all.  Charleston  was  making  comparatively 
little  progress.  These  conditions  were  attributed  in  great  measure 
to  the  protective  tariff  and  the  extravagant  expenditures  of  the 
Federal  government.  Failing  to  secure  a  reversal  of  the  objection- 
able policies,  opponents  of  the  tariff  hit  upon  nullification  as  a 
remedy.  Upon  nullification  as  the  issue  two  parties  developed. 
The  State  Rights  party,  or  Nullifiers,  held  nullification  to  be  a 
constitutional  mode  of  resisting  palpably  unconstitutional  laws, 
which  they  considered  the  tariff  laws  to  be,  and  thought  it  justified 
by  the  oppression  suffered  under  the  tariff.  They  professed  to 
believe  that  nullification  would  result  in  a  repeal  of  the  tariff, 
but  were  prepared  to  resort  to  the  remedy  even  should  war  and 
disunion  be  the  consequences.  The  Union  party,  on  the  other 
hand,  opposed  nullification  as  unconstitutional  and  certain  to  lead 

65 


66        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861       [66 

to  war,  which  could  result  only  in  the  crushing  of  South  Carolina. 
Furthermore,  many  of  the  Unionists  either  denied  that  South 
Carolina  was  not  prosperous,  or,  admitting  it,  attributed  the  lack 
of  prosperity  to  other  causes  than  the  tariff.  After  a  violent 
struggle  of  four  years  duration  a  convention  was  called,  which 
adopted  an  ordinance  nullifying  the  tariff  laws  of  1828  and  1832. 
While  Andrew  Jackson  prepared  to  employ  force,  Congress  en- 
acted the  Compromise  Tariff  of  1833.  Thereupon  the  South 
Carolina  Convention  repealed  the  nullification  ordinance.  In  other 
Southern  states  there  was  much  sympathy  with  South  Carolina's 
opposition  to  the  tariff;  many  citizens  accepted  in  whole  or  in  part 
the  doctrines  of  the  Nullifiers.  This  sympathy  was  especially 
strong  in  Georgia  and  eastern  Virginia,  and  quite  strong  in  North 
Carolina  and  Alabama.1 

After  1833  the  division  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina  into 
Nullifiers  and  Unionists  was  largely  perpetuated,  the  former  being 
in  a  growing  majority.  The  Nullifiers  first  affiliated  with  the  Whig 
party,  which  took  form  about  1834;  about  1838-1840  the  great  ma- 
jority of  them  were  led  back  into  the  Democratic  fold  by  Calhoun, 
and  continued  thereafter  to  call  themselves  Democrats.  After  this 
latter  date  the  Unionists  of  South  Carolina  were  to  be  found  in  the 
dwindling  Whig  party  and  in  what  may  be  termed  the  Jackson 
wing  of  the  Democratic  party.  It  was  the  policy  of  the  leaders 
of  the  dominant  faction  to  conciliate  and  assimilate  the  Unionist 
faction;  this  policy  was  successful  in  the  main.  In  other  Southern 
states,  particularly  the  cotton  states  and  Virginia,  the  large  ma- 
jority of  those  who  had  sympathized  with  the  South  Carolina 
Nullifiers  in  1832  continued  in  their  devotion  to  the  principles  of 
the  nullificationist  leaders.  Perhaps  the  majority  of  this  class 
(Georgia  and  North  Carolina  may  be  exceptions)  were  aligned 
with  the  Whig  party  during  the  early  years  of  its  history.  Most 
of  those  so  aligned,  however,  shifted  to  the  Democratic  party, 
either  with  Calhoun  during  Van  Buren's  administration,  or  later, 
in  Tyler's  time.  Of  those  who  remained  with  the  Whigs,  some 
were  ostensibly  converted  to  Whig  principles;  others  retained 

JThe  above  statements  are  based  upon  standard  special  works  and  mono- 
graphs covering  this  period,  and  upon  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun;  Cor- 
respondence of  Robert  Toombs,  A.  H.  Stephens,  and  Hotvell  Cobb;  Correspond- 
ence of  R.  M.  T.  Hunter;  and  other  of  the  more  accessible  sources. 


67]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  67 

both  their  state  rights,  free  trade,  and  reform  principles  and  their 
Whig  affiliation  until  almost  the  end  of  the  Whig  party.  In  the 
Democratic  party  the  line  of  cleavage  between  the  Calhoun  wing 
and  the  Jackson-Benton-Van  Buren  wing  remained  fairly  distinct 
until  the  Civil  War.  It  was  the  former  element  which  rallied  to  the 
support  of  John  C.  Calhoun  when  he  came  forward  in  1843  as 
the  free  trade  and  reform  candidate  for  the  Democratic  nomina- 
tion for  the  presidency.2 

The  Calhoun  wing  of  the  Democratic  party  held  extreme  state 
rights  principles.  Furthermore,  it  had  been  and  continued  to  be 
the  conviction  of  this  following  that  (i)  the  government  of  the 
United  States  was  too  extravagantly  administered;  (2)  the  South- 
ern people  paid  more  than  their  proportionate  share  of  the  rev- 
enues and  received  back  much  less  than  their  proportionate  share 
in  the  form  of  disbursements;  (3)  they  were  compelled  by  govern- 
ment to  pay  tribute  to  Northern  manufacturers,  shipowners,  and 
merchants,  by  virtue  of  the  tariff,  fishing  bounties,  exclusion  of 
foreign  vessels  from  the  coasting  trade,  and  heavy  government 
expenditures  in  the  North;  (4)  and  these  continual  and  uncom- 
pensated  drains  upon  the  resources  of  the  Southern  states  were 
enriching  the  North  and  impoverishing  the  South.  No  Nullifier 
would  admit  that  the  Southern  states  had  the  prosperity  or  were 
making  the  material  progress  to  which  their  resources,  population, 
and  the  industry  of  their  people  entitled  them.  "Abolish  Custom 
Houses,"  wrote  Calhoun,  in  1845,  "and  let  the  money  collected  in 
the  South  be  spent  in  the  South  and  we  would  be  among  the  most 
flourishing  people  in  the  world.  The  North  could  not  stand  the  an- 
nual draft,  which  they  have  been  making  on  us  50  years,  without 
being  reduced  to  the  extreme  of  poverty  in  half  the  time.  All  we 
want  to  be  rich  is  to  let  us  have  what  we  make."3  Such  views  as 

"It  would  be  impossible  in  a  study  of  this  scope  to  develop  the  statements 
made  in  the  above  summary  analysis  of  the  party  alignment  in  the  South.  They 
are  based  upon  a  wide  variety  of  sources  quoted  elsewhere  in  other  connections; 
special  mention  might  be  made  of  the  Correspondence  of  John  C.  Calhoun  and 
the  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers.  It  is  believed  the  conclusions  here  presented  ac- 
cord in  the  main  with  the  evidence  and  conclusions  of  Cole,  Wh\g  Party  in  the 
South;  Phillips,  Georgia  and  Staff  Rights;  and  Ambler,  Sectionalism  in  Virginia, 
and  Thomas  Ritchie.  It  is  believed,  also,  that  evidence  presented  elsewhere  in 
this  study  tends  to  substantiate  the  conclusions  given  here. 

'Calhoun  to  J.  H.  Hammond,  Aug.  30,  1845,  Calhoun  Correspondence,  670. 


68        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [68 

these  were  expressed  in  every  tariff  debate,  in  the  discussion  of 
almost  every  rivers  and  harbors  bill,  fortifications  bill,  pensions 
bill — in  fact,  whenever  a  proposal  was  introduced  in  Congress 
which  involved  the  raising  or  appropriation  of  money.  They  were 
presented,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  direct  trade  conventions  of 
1837-1839.  They  came  out  in  almost  every  comparison  of  the 
progress  of  the  North  and  South  and  in  every  defense  of  slavery; 
for  it  was  necessary  to  trace  "Southern  decline"  to  other  causes 
than  slavery. 

It  was  the  constant  purpose  of  Calhoun  and  other  leaders  to 
reform  the  "fiscal  action  of  the  General  Government."  But  it  had 
early  become  the  conviction  of  some  of  his  followers  that  the  gov- 
ernment was  beyond  redemption,  and  that  the  proper  policy  for 
the  Southern  states  to  pursue  was  separation  from  the  North.  The 
bitter  feelings  engendered  and  the  fears  for  slavery  aroused  by  the 
several  quarrels  over  governmental  policies  affecting  that  institu- 
tion had  led  many  to  calculate  the  value  of  the  Union  from  an 
economic  viewpoint  who  otherwise  might  not  have  done  so.  A 
consideration  of  the  benefits  and  disadvantages  of  the  Union  led 
a  number  to  form  the  conclusion  that  disunion  was  not  a  con- 
summation to  be  dreaded  and  avoided  but  a  measure  which  would 
promote  the  prosperity,  power,  and  happiness  of  the  South. 
>  An  example  of  their  reasoning  may  be  found  in  a  great  speech 
against  the  Tariff  of  1842,  which  George  McDuifie,  of  South  Caro- 
lina, made  in  the  Senate,  1844.  He  warned  the  advocates  of  pro- 
tection that  there  was  a  point  beyond  which  oppression  would  not 
be  endured,  "even  by  the  most  enslaved  community  in  the  world." 
He  pictured  the  Union  divided  into  three  confederations — the 
North  and  Northeast  as  one,  the  West  as  another,  and  the  South- 
ern states  as  a  third.  He  showed  that 

The  manufacturing  States  could  not  adhere  to  the  protective 
system  one  year.  They  would  have  no  revenue,  and  would  be 
driven  to  direct  taxation;  whereas  the  Southern  confederation 
would  become  the  importing  States,  receiving  in  exchange  foreign 
manufactures  for  their  rice,  cotton,  tobacco,  and  sugar;  that  the 
Southwestern  confederation  would  be  exchangers  with  the  South- 
ern confederation  of  their  products  for  the  products  of  Europe;  for 
they  would  never  be  so  foolish  as  to  buy  of  the  New  England  Con- 
federation at  forty  per  cent  higher  in  price  than  need  be  paid  for 
the  same  goods  in  the  southern  confederation.  ...  In  ten  years 
there  would  be  such  a  difference  that  a  person  absent  so  long  re- 
turning, would  be  struck  with  the  change  in  the  condition  of  these 


69]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  69 

sections  of  the  country.  The  West  he  would  see  grown  up  into  a 
great  and  flourishing  empire;  the  South  the  seat  of  commerce  and 
the  arts;  the  great  cities  of  Boston  and  New  York  rebuilt  in 
Charleston  and  New  Orleans,  and  more  flourishing  than  in  their 
original,  uncongenial  climates.  But  in  New  England  he  would  find 
the  prosperity,  comforts,  wealth,  etc.,  resulting  from  partial  legis- 
lation all  gone:  houses  falling  to  ruin,  cities  deserted,  furniture 
selling  by  auction,  and  all  the  indications  of  indigence  prevailing...4 

McDuffie  was  arguing  for  a  repeal  of  the  tariff;  but  others  in 
his  state  used  similar  arguments  in  favor  of  disunion.  During  the 
short-lived  Bluffton  movement,  to  which  reference  has  already 
been  made,  disunion  sentiments  were  openly  expressed.  Judge 
Langdon  Cheves  in  a  long  letter  to  the  Charleston  Mercury  made 
a  thinly  veiled  argument  for  disunion;5  as  such  it  was  taken  both 
South  and  North.8  A  few  months  later  another  correspondent  of 
the  Mercury  in  an  article  headed,"Reflections  on  Re-perusing  Judge 
Cheve's  Letter,"  put  the  case  for  secession  without  any  indirec- 
tion whatsoever.  "The  institutions  and  municipal  policy,  and  geo- 
graphical position,  and  popular  feelings  and  pursuits  of  the  north 
and  south  can  never  harmonize  as  one  people.  Speak  it  out — for 
it  is  spoken  sub  rosa  in  every  group  of  domestic  and  political 
coterie — that  the  sections  divided  by  interest  can  never  assimilate 
in  sentiment  and  national  amity."7  Both  Cheves  and  his  reviewer 
described  how  separation  would  promote  the  prosperity  of  agri- 
culture and  commerce  in  the  South. 

The  saner  leaders  in  South  Carolina,  at  the  time  of  the  Bluffton 
movement,  were  insistent  that  any  measure  taken,  whether  seces- 
sion or  nullification,  must  be  taken  by  a  united  South,  and  they 
labored  under  no  delusions  in  regard  to  the  attitude  of  the  South 
as  a.  whole.  In  the  spring  of  1844  the  cry,  "Texas  or  Disunion," 
had  awakened  response  in  several  Southern  states;8  but  as  soon 

'Cong.  Globe,  28  Cong,  i  Sess.,  206  (Jan.  29). 

'Niles'  Register,  LXVII,  49  ff. 

'A  Reply  to  the  Letter  of  the  Honorable  Langdon  Cheves,  by  "A  South- 
erner" (pamphlet);  Adams,  J.  Q.,  Memoirs,  XII,  91. 

TApril  4,  1845;  Niles'  Register,  LXVIII,  88  ff. 

*Ibid.,  LXVI,  313,  meetings  in  South  Carolina;  ibid.,  LXVI,  123, 
quoting  the  New  Orleans  Tropic;  ibid.,  229,  312,  accounts  of  meetings  in  Barn- 
well  District,  South  Carolina,  and  Russell  County,  Alabama;  ibid.,  3 1,  quoting  the 
Richmond  Enquirer,  and  other  Southern  papers;  ibid.,  LXVI,  405,  disunion 
meetings  in  Lawrence  county,  Alabama,  and  in  several  districts  in  South  Caro- 
lina; Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  613-619. 


70        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-186 1       [70 

as  it  had  achieved  its  purpose  of  securing  the  Democratic  nomina- 
tion for  the  presidency  for  a  Southern  man  who  was  sound  on  the 
Texas  issue,  the  Democratic  leaders  proved  most  anxious  to  clear 
themselves  of  any  taint  of  disunion  which  the  Whigs  tried  to  fix 
upon  them.9  The  Charleston  Mercury  admitted  that  other  states 
would  not  join  South  Carolina  in  resistance.10  General  James 
Hamilton  wrote  in  a  public  letter:  "I  cannot  but  express  my  be- 
lief that  South  Carolina  is  not  now  ready  for  separate  action,  nor 
the  southern  states  for  a  southern  convention."  He  expressed  the 
same  view  privately.11  Langdon  Cheves  suggested  that,  instead 
of  South  Carolina  undertaking  separate  resistance,  an  active 
propaganda  be  conducted  throughout  the  South  to  develop  among 
the  people  a  feeling  of  unity  and  a  sense  of  their  oppression.  He 
would  have  had  a  course  followed  similar  to  that  pursued  in  the 
Thirteen  Colonies  prior  to  the  American  Revolution:  "Let  asso- 
ciations be  formed  in  every  southern,  and,  if  possible,  in  every 
southwestern  state,  and  let  them  confer  together  and  interchange 
views  and  information;  let  leading  men  through  committees  and 
private  correspondence  collect,  compare,  and  concentrate  the  views 
of  men  in  their  respective  states,  and  when  ripe  for  it,  and  not 
before,  let  representatives  from  those  states  meet  in  convention, 
and  if  circumstances  promise  success,  let  them  then  deliberate  on 
the  mode  of  resistance  and  the  measure  of  redress."12  It  became 
the  settled  policy  of  certain  South  Carolina  leaders  to  bring  the 
Southern  states  together  in  convention,  to  break  down  party  dis- 
tinctions throughout  the  South,  as  they  had  largely  been  broken 
down  in  their  own  state,  and  to  "fire  the  Southern  heart." 

There  was  little  in  the  course  of  events  during  the  next  several 
years  to  modify  the  views  of  men  of  the  South  Carolina  school  or 
to  deplete  the  ranks  of  the  disunionists.  The  Walker  tariff,  the 
Independent  Treasury,  and  the  veto  of  rivers  and  harbors  bills 

'Niles'  Register,  LXVI,  313,  347,  369,  391,  406,  411,  quoting  the  Richmond 
Enquirer  as  denying  connection  with  the  "Texas  or  Disunion"  cry  and  proposed 
Southern  convention  at  Nashville;  ibid.,  LXVI,  313,  346,  and  the  National  In- 
telligencer, July  23,  on  the  meeting  in  Nashville  to  protest  against  the  proposed 
"Texas  or  Disunion"  convention;  National  Intelligencer,  July  27,  Aug.  10,  n. 

10Aug.  9,  1844,  "Our  Position  and  our  Pledges,"  in  Niles'  Register,  LXVI, 
406  ff. 

"Ibid.,  LXVI,  420;  Hamilton  to  Hammond,  Oct.  4,  1844,  /.  H.  Hammond 
Papers. 

"Niles'  Register,  LXVII,  49. 


71  ]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  MOVEMENT  "Jl 

pleased  but  did  not  satisfy  the  free  trade  and  reform  element. 
Then  with  the  introduction  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  1846,  there 
began  an  acrimonious  struggle  over  slavery  which  continued  al- 
most without  interruption  until  about  1852,  when  the  general  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Compromise  of  1850,  and  the  defeat  of  efforts  to 
resist  it,  ushered  in  a  short  period  of  relative  calm.  The  disposi- 
tion evinced  by  the  majority  in  the  North  to  exclude  slavery  from 
the  territory  acquired  from  Mexico  and  other  manifestations  of 
hostility  to  the  institution,  together  with  the  growing  political  pre- 
ponderance and  unity  of  the  free  states,  caused  the  majority  in 
the  South  to  fear  for  the  security  of  slavery  and  other  substantial 
Southern  interests.  Southern  leaders  were  put  to'  it  to  know  how 
to  meet  the  issue.  Under  these  circumstances  disunion  was  fully 
canvassed  as  a  remedy,  immediate  or  ultimate. 

The  long  debates  in  Congress,  the  accompanying  discussion  in 
the  press  and  from  the  platform,  the  Southern  conventions  at 
Nashville  and  their  preliminaries,  and,  finally,  the  contests  waged 
in  several  states  between  those  who  favored  acquiescence  in  the 
compromise  measures  and  those  who  counselled  resistance,  af- 
forded ample  opportunity  for  a  thorough  discussion  of  the  ad- 
vantages and  disadvantages  of  the  Union  and  the  expediency  and 
propriety  of  secession.  The  discussion  revealed  how  extensively 
the  ideas  were  held  that  the  Union  was  a  detriment  to  the  prosper- 
ity and  economic  progress  of  the  South,  and,  the  corollary,  the 
South  would  be  more  prosperous  and  develop  more  rapidly  were 
the  Union  dissolved.  The  discussion  also,  no  doubt,  contributed  to 
the  spread  of  these  ideas.  It  also  revealed,  and  no  doubt  increased, 
the  number  of  those  who,  while  they  did  not  look  for  disunion  to 
bring  positive  economic  advantages,  expected  it  to  bring  no  serious 
disadvantages — in  short,  those  who  could  look  to  disunion  with 
complacency,  for  whom  it  "had  no  terrors." 

Very  early  in  the  struggle  over  slavery  in  the  territory  to  be 
acquired  from  Mexico  declarations  were  given  in  the  South  of  a 
determination  to  resist  the  adoption  and  enforcement  of  the  Wil- 
mot Proviso  "at  all  hazards  and  to  the  last  extremity."13  As  the 

"Virginia  resolutions,  Mar.  8,  1847,  in  Ames,  State  Documents  on  Federal 
Relations,  245-7,  were  the  first  official  declaration.  Other  state  legislatures,  as 
well  as  party  conventions,  and  numerous  meetings  of  citizens  adopted  similar 
resolutions.  See  Hamer,  Secession  Movement  in  S.  C.,  1847-1852,  pp.  5,  6,  n, 
16  f.,  29,  30  f. 


72        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861       [j2 

struggle  progressed  these  declarations  were  renewed,  and  extend- 
ed, as  the  issues  were  presented,  to  include  other  threatened  acts 
of  Northern  aggression.  To  prove  that  these  were  not  merely  idle 
threats,  Southern  men  talked  long  and  angrily  of  Southern  rights 
and  Southern  honor  and  pictured  the  ruin  that  would  be  brought 
to  the  South  by  abolition — which  they  professed  to  believe  would 
be  the  ultimate  consequence  of  restriction  of  slave  territory  and 
loss  of  the  sectional  equilibrium.  Many  also  endeavored  to  dem- 
onstrate that  the  South  could  safely  stake  the  Union  upon  the 
issue  of  the  struggle,  because  the  South  would  suffer  very  little,  if 
not  actually  gain,  from  a  dissolution,  while  the  North  stood  to 
lose  so  much  in  the  event  that  she  would  yield  rather  than  permit 
the  Union  to  be  destroyed — "calculating  the  value  of  the  Union," 
this  was  termed. 

After  the  election  of  1848  and  after  the  Taylor  administration 
had  seemed  to  show  anti-slavery  leanings,  the  task  of  calculating 
the  value  of  the  Union  was  undertaken  in  earnest.  In  the  press,  in 
numerous  pamphlets,  in  Congress,  during  the  debates  on  the 
compromise  measures,  threats  of  a  dissolution  in  case  the  South 
should  be  denied  justice  were  reenforced  by  more  or  less  elabor- 
ate comparisons  of  the  economic  advantages  or  disadvantages  of 
the  Union  to  the  various  sections.  Many  of  those  who  thus  cal- 
culated the  value  of  the  Union  were  conditional  disunionists.  They 
professed  to  be  ready  to  stake  the  Union  upon  the  satisfaction  of 
their  demands.  In  all  probability  their  demands  would  not  have 
been  so  great  or  so  firmly  made,  had  they  attached  greater  value 
to  the  Union;  nevertheless,  they  intended  to  preserve  the  Union 
if  it  could  be  done  without  too  great  sacrifice.  But  another  class 
was  in  evidence  during  the  crisis,  the  disunionists  per  se,  who 
favored  disunion  irrespective  of  the  character  of  the  settlement  of 
the  pending  questions  of  conflict.  They  would  have  seized  the  op- 
portunity to  demand  guarantees  of  the  North  which  they  would 
have  had  no  expectation  of  securing.  In  their  opinion  the  interests 
of  the  two  sections  had  become  so  diverse  that  they  could  no 
longer  live  amicably  under  one  government.  The  Union  had  be- 
come a  disadvantage  to  the  South:  she  would  be  more  peaceful, 
happy,  and  prosperous  out  of  it. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  first  manifestations  of  this  ultra  sen- 
timent were  in  South  Carolina.  As  early  as  November  2,  1848,  H. 
W.  Connor,  of  Charleston,  wrote  Calhoun  that  he  believed  "there 


73]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  73 

has  been  and  probably  still  is  a  design  to  revive  the  old  Bluffton 
move  with  the  same  motive  and  end."14'  The  following  February, 
J.  H.  Hammond  expressed  to  Calhoun  his  belief  that  the  crisis  was 
at  hand.15  In  the  summer  of  1849  the  South  Carolina  Telegraph 
began  openly  to  agitate  for  a  dissolution  of  the  Union;  and  by 
early  in  1850  nearly  every  newspaper  in  the  state  was  advo- 
cating disunion.16  The  Charleston  Mercury  expected  it.17  Mean- 
while Governor  Seabrook  was  in  correspondence  with  the  govern- 
ors of  other  Southern  states  relative  to  what  action  they  might  be 
expected  to  take  if  the  Wilmot  Proviso  or  other  objectionable 
measure  should  be  adopted  by  Congress.18  Georgia  newspaper 
editors,  in  the  summer  of  1850,  boldly  inserted  communications 
in  their  columns,  without  any  marks  of  disapprobation,  openly 
advocating  disunion.  Prominent  leaders  like  Joseph  H.  Lumpkin, 
William  L.  Mitchell,  W.  F.  Colquitt,  A.  G.  McDonald,  and  Joseph 
E.  Brown  were  known  as  disunionists,  per  se.ig  John  B.  Lamar 
wrote  Howell  Cobb  that  if  it  were  not  for  Cobb's  influence  Geor- 
gia would  be  more  rampant  for  disunion  than  South  Carolina  ever 
was.20  There  were  disunionists  per  se  also  in  Alabama,  Missis- 
sippi, North  Carolina,  Virginia,  and  Tennessee. 

It  was  this  disunion  element  chiefly  which  was  responsible  for 
the  meeting  of  the  Nashville  Convention  of  June  1850.  The  idea 
of  getting  the  South  together  in  a  Southern  convention  was  an  old 
one  in  South  Carolina  at  least.21  After  the  conflict  over  the  Wil- 

"Calhoun  Correspondence.   Cf.  Hamer,  op.  cit.,  26. 

"Letter  of  Feb.  19,  1849,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 

"National  Intelligencer,  Feb.  15,  1850. 

"Ibid.,  loc.  cit. 

"Gov.  W.  D.  Mosely,  of  Fla.,  to  Whitemarsh  B.  Seabrook,  May  18,  1849, 
Seabrook  MSS.  "I  do  not  now  see  any  other  executive  to  whom  to  address  your- 
self besides  those  you  have  already  approached."  Franklin  H.  Elmore  to  Sea- 
brook,  May  30,  ibid. 

"John  H.  Lumpkin  to  Howell  Cobb,  July  21,  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Cor- 
respondence. 

'"Letter  of  Feb.  7,   1850,  ibid. 

"Unionists  had  proposed  a  Southern  convention  in  1832  as  a  substitute  for 
nullification.  Boucher,  Nullification  Controversy  in  South  Carolina,  197-203.  It 
was  discussed  in  1835-1838,  when  the  questions  of  abolition  literature  in  the 
mails,  abolition  petitions  in  Congress,  and  kindred  questions  were  causing  angry 
controversy.  Calhoun  to  Hayne,  Nov.  17,  1838,  Calhoun  Correspondence;  Ambler, 
Thomas  Ritchie,  A  Study  in  Virginia  Politics,  173;  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View, 


74        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [74 

mot  Proviso  Lad  been  fairly  joined,  Calhoun  sounded  the  views  of 
leading  men  of  his  following  throughout  the  South  upon  the 
subject.22  A  call  could  have  been  secured  at  any  time  from  South 
Carolina;  but  in  view  of  the  well  known  disunion  tendencies  of 
that  state,  it  was  deemed  advisable  that  it  should  originate  else- 
where. Finally  the  call  was  issued  by  a  delegate  convention  in 
Jackson,  Mississippi,  October,  1849.  If  the  report  of  Daniel  Wal- 
lace, secret  agent  of  Governor  Seabrook,  of  South  Carolina,  may 
be  credited,  men  who  were  former  residents  of  that  state  and  dis- 
unionists,  were  very  influential  in  the  proceedings.23 

In  South  Carolina  opposition  to  the  Nashville  Convention  was 
almost  negligible.  The  character  of  the  delegates  elected,  their 
correspondence,  and  the  comments  of  the  press  leave  little  doubt 
that  it  was  intended  to  use  the  Nashville  Convention  to  promote 
disunion.24  In  most  of  the  other  slaveholding  states  the  call  of  the 
convention  at  first  met  with  hearty  response.  But  opposition  soon 
developed.  Thomas  H.  Benton  denounced  it  as  a  disunion  plot.25 
The  Whigs  generally  condemned  it;  they  distrusted  the  disorgan- 
izing proclivities  of  some  of  those  active  in  promoting  it.  The 
compromising  spirit  shown  in  Congress  in  the  early  months  of 
1850  strengthened  the  opposition  to  the  Southern  Convention  by 
making  it  appear  unnecessary  as  well  as  dangerous.26  Six  slave 
states,  Louisiana,  North  Carolina,  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Maryland, 

II,  700.  It  was  again  mooted  in  1844,  particularly  during  the  "Texas  or  Disun- 
ion" agitation.  James  Hamilton  to  J.  H.  Hammond,  Oct.  4,  1844,  /.  H.  Ham- 
mond  Papers;  Nile/  Register,  LXVI,  229,  312,  369  (accounts  of  meetings  in 
S.  C  and  Ala.);  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  613-619. 

"Calhoun  to  a  member  of  the  Alabama  Legislature,  1847,  Benton,  Thirty 
Years'  View,  II,  698-700;  Joseph  W.  Lesesne  to  Calhoun,  Sept.  12,  1847,  Calhoun 
Correspondence;  Wilson  Lumpkin  to  Calhoun,  Nov.  18,  1847;  H.  W.  Connor  to 
Calhoun,  Nov.  2,  1848;  John  Cunningham  to  Calhoun,  Nov.  12;  Calhoun  to 
J.  H.  Means,  Apr.  13,  1849. 

"D.  W.  Wallace  to  Gov.  Seabrook,  June  8,  Oct.  20,  Nov.  7,  1849,  Seabrook 
A/SS. 

"A.  H.  Brisbane  to  Hammond,  Jan.  28,  1850,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers;  Na- 
tional Intelligencer,  Apr.  20,  May  18,  June  5,  1850.  Cf.  Hamer,  op.  cit.,  46-48. 
Wm.  Gilmore  Simms  wrote  Hammond:  "I  regard  the  Southern  convention  as  in 
fact  a  Southern  confederacy.  To  become  the  one  it  seems  to  me  very  certain  is 
to  become  the  other."  Quoted  in  Trent,  William  Gilmore  Simms,  179. 

"National  Intelligencer,  Mar.  20,  1850,  account  of  a  meeting  in  St  Louis, 
Mar.  7. 

MCf.    Cole,  Whig  Party  in  the  South,  157-62,  168-72. 


75]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  75 

and  Delaware,  failed  to  send  delegates.  In  Georgia  a  very  small 
percentage  of  the  voters  participated  in  the  election  of  delegates.27 
Western  Virginia  and  several  populous  counties  in  the  east  took 
no  part  in  the  election  of  delegates,28  and  only  six  delegates  from 
the  state  attended  the  convention.  Only  South  Carolina,  Tennes- 
see, Alabama,  and  Mississippi  were  represented  by  full  delega- 
tions, and  in  the  two  last  the  delegates  were  appointed  by  the 
legislatures. 

When  the  Nashville  Convention  met  the  disunionists  soon  saw 
that  any  action  looking  to  immediate  resistance  was  impossible, 
and,  therefore,  worked  for  a  second  meeting.29  Several  disunion 
per  se  speeches  were  made,  the  most  notable  being  that  of  Beverly 
Tucker,  of  Virginia.30  The  resolutions  and  the  address  to  the 
people  of  the  slaveholding  states  which  were  adopted  declared,  in 
effect,  that  the  compromise  measures  then  pending  in  Congress 
were  unacceptable  and  called  for  the  extension  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  line  to  the  Pacific  as  a  sine  qua  non.3i  The  adjourned 
session  of  the  convention  met  in  Nashville,  November  n,  1850, 
with  seven  states  represented,  by  delegations  reduced  in  size.32 
Most  of  the  Union  men  of  the  first  session  refused  to  attend  the 
second,  and  the  disunionists  easily  dominated  it.33  The  resolu- 
tions denounced  the  compromise  measures  which  Congress  had 
adopted,  and  recommended  a  congress  or  convention  of  the  slave- 
holding  states  "intrusted  with  full  power  and  authority  to  deliber- 
ate and  act  with  a  view  and  intention  of  arresting  further  aggres- 
sion, and,  if  possible,  of  restoring  the  constitutional  rights  of  the 
South,  and,  if  not,  to  provide  for  their  future  safety  and  inde- 

"National  Intelligencer,  Apr.  11,  1850. 

'"Ambler,  Sectionalism  in  Virginia,  249;  letters  of  Wm.  0.  Goode  to  R.  M.  T. 
Hunter,  Mar.  29,  Apr.  20,  May  II,  1850,  Correspondence  of  R.  M.  T.  Hunter. 

"Hammond  to  Wm.  G.  Simms,  June  16,  1850,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXXI,  59-69;  reviewed  in  So.  Quar.  Rev.,  XVIII,  218- 
23.  See  also  Hammond  to  Simms,  June  16,  1850,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers. 

"The  resolutions  and  the  address  are  in  Ames,  State  Documents  on  Federal 
Relations,  263-9.  Proceedings  in  National  Intelligencer,  June  4-16,  1850. 

"Proceedings  in  ibid.,  Nov.  16. 

"Perhaps  the  most  noteworthy  incident  of  the  meeting  was  the  three  hours 
speech  of  Langdon  Cheves,  of  South  Carolina,  advocating  secession.  This  speech 
was  published  as  a  pamphlet  and  widely  used  in  the  state  contests  over  the 
acceptance  of  the  compromise  measures. 


76        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1      [76 

pendence."  This  action  was  intended  to  influence  the  contests 
then  being  waged  in  four  states  over  the  Compromise  of  1850. 

After  the  passage  of  the  compromise  measures  spirited  contests 
ensued  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi  be- 
tween those  who  would  acquiesce  and  those  who  would  resist.  In 
South  Carolina  the  submissionists  or  Unionists  were  in  a  small 
minority.  The  real  contest  lay  between  the  cooperationists  and 
the  separate-actionists.  The  former  believed  that  South  Carolina 
should  secede,  but  only  in  case  other  cotton  states  should  take 
similar  action  at  the  same  time.  The  separate-actionists  wanted 
a  convention  called  to  take  the  state  out  of  the  Union,  in  company 
with  others,  if  possible,  if  not,  alone.  They  professed  to  believe 
that  if  South  Carolina  should  secede  and  the  Federal  government 
should  undertake  coercion,  the  other  Southern  states  would  come 
to  her  support;  if,  as  was  possible,  the  Federal  government  should 
not  adopt  coercive  measures,  South  Carolina  would  be  prosperous 
and  happy  as  an  independent  nation.  The  issue  was  not  fairly 
joined  until  after  the  failure  of  the  secession  movements  in  Geor- 
gia, Mississippi,  and  Alabama  was  certain;  then  the  contest  be- 
came very  spirited.  At  an  election  held  October  13  and  14,  1851, 
to  choose  delegates  to  a  Southern  congress,  which  the  Legislature 
had  called,  the  cooperationists  cast  25,045  votes  to  their  oppon- 
ents' 17,710  and  carried  all  of  the  congressional  districts  but 
one.34  This  result  was  interpreted  as  instructing  the  delegates  to 
the  State  Convention,  who  had  been  elected  in  February.  The  Con- 
vention accordingly  adopted  a  preamble  and  a  resolution  which 
declared  the  right  of  secession  and  resolved  that  secession  was 
justified  by  the  course  of  the  Federal  government  but  that  South 
Carolina  "forbears  the  exercise  of  this  manifest  right  of  self-gov- 
ernment from  considerations  of  expediency  only."35 

In  Georgia,  Governor  Towns,  acting  upon  instructions  from  the 
Legislature,  called  a  convention  to  meet  December  10  to  consider 
the  compromise  measures.  During  the  campaign  for  the  election 
of  delegates,  the  Union  party,  which  favored  acquiescence  in  the 
compromise,  was  opposed  by  a  Southern  Rights  party,  which 
counselled  resistance.  The  great  majority  of  the  Whigs  and  a  re- 
spectable minority  of  the  Democrats  supported  the  Union  candi- 

"National  Intelligencer,  Oct.  18,  20,  21,  1851;  Hamer,  op.  cit.,  123. 
15 Journal  of  the  State  Convention  of  South  Carolina  . . .  1852,  p.  18. 


77 ]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  77 

dates;  while  the  majority  of  the  Democrats  entered  the  Southern 
Rights  party.  Under  the  leadership  of  Howell  Cobb,  A.  H.  Steph- 
ens, and  Robert  Toombs  the  Union  party  won  with  a  large  major- 
ity of  the  popular  vote  and  an  overwhelming  majority  in  the 
convention.  After  this  victory  the  Union  party  perfected  an  organ- 
ization and  entered  the  state  campaign  of  1851  with  Howell  Cobb, 
Democrat,  as  its  candidate  for  governor.  The  Southern  Rights 
party  nominated  as  its  candidate  ex-Governor  A.  G.  McDonald, 
who  had  presided  over  the  second  meeting  of  the  Nashville  Con- 
vention. Again  the  Unionists  won  a  substantial  victory.  Similar 
events  occurred  in  Mississippi.  Upon  the  passage  of  the  com- 
promise measures,  Governor  John  A.  Quitman  called  an  extra 
session  of  the  Legislature  which,  in  turn,  called  a  state  convention 
to  meet  November  10,  1851.  A  Union  party  was  formed  to  con- 
test the  election  of  delegates  to  the  convention  and  the  regular 
state  elections  of  November,  1851.  It  was  composed  of  the  great 
majority  of  the  Whigs  and  a  minority  of  the  Democrats.  H.  S. 
Foote,  Union  Democrat,  was  the  nominee  for  governor.  The 
Union  party  was  opposed  by  a  Southern  Rights  party,  officially 
designated  the  Democratic  State  Rights  party,  led  by  Quitman 
and  Jefferson  Davis  and  composed  chiefly  of  Democrats.  The 
Unionists  won  a  sweeping  victory  in  the  September  elections  for 
delegates  to  the  convention,  and  elected  Foote  governor  over 
Jefferson  Davis  by  a  small  majority  in  November.  The  Conven- 
tion adopted  resolutions  accepting  the  compromise  measures  and 
declaring  secession  not  to  be  a  constitutional  right.36  In  Alabama, 
Governor  Collier  refused  to  call  a  special  session  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, which  might  have  called  a  state  convention.  Sentiment  was 
clearly  in  favor  of  acquiescence  in  the  compromise.  However, 
Southern  Rights  associations  were  formed,  as  in  other  states,  and 
the  right  of  secession  was  made  an  issue  in  the  campaign  for  the 
election  of  members  of  Congress  in  1851. 

The  contest  in  South  Carolina  evoked  the  publication  of  numer- 
ous long  pamphlets,  several  long  and  laborious  articles  in  the 
Southern  Quarterly  Review,  and  the  proceedings  of  meetings  of 
Southern  Rights  associations,  as  well  as  voluminous  discussion  in 
the  press  and  innumerable  stump  speeches.  Both  separate-act- 
ionists  and  cooperationists  again  and  again  represented  secession 

"Journal  of  the  Convention  of  the  State  of  Mississippi . . .  1851,  p.  47. 


78         ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840- 1 86 1       [78 

not  only  as  a  remedy  for  Northern  aggression  against  slavery 
(although  that  was  the  chief  consideration)  but  also  as  a  measure 
desirable  irrespective  of  the  slavery  question.  The  opponents  of 
separate  action  demonstrated  conclusively  that  separate  secession 
would  adversely  aifect  the  prosperity  of  South  Carolina  and, 
especially,  the  commercial  interests  of  Charleston,  even  should  it 
be  permitted  to  be  peaceful;  but  it  was  a  rare  voice  that  spoke 
of  the  advantages  of  the  Union.37  The  cooperationists  were  charged 
with  going  beyond  the  separate-actionists  in  depicting  the  evils  of 
the  Union.38  J.  D.  B.  DeBow,  then  of  New  Orleans,  a  strong 
Southern  Rights  man,  objected  to  most  of  the  papers  and  docu- 
ments issued  by  the  South  Carolina  press  because  "they  go  far 
beyond  the  necessities  of  the  case,  and  frame  an  argument  for 
disunion  at  all  hazards,  even  were  the  slavery  question  closed  up 
and  amicably  settled."39 

Early  in  the  contests  in  Georgia,  Mississippi,  and  Alabama  the 
leaders  of  the  Southern  Rights  parties  saw  that  the  people 
would  not  go  for  secession,  and  sought  to  shift  the  issue  from 
the  expediency  to  the  constitutional  right  of  secession;40  there- 
after arguments  for  disunion  per  se,  such  as  were  used  so  freely 
in  South  Carolina,  were  used  rather  charily.  But  the  people 
had  opportunity  to  become  acquainted  with  all  the  disunionist 
doctrines. 

Outside  the  four  states  named  the  compromise  measures  were 

"The  best  arguments  against  separate  secession  are  in:  Speech  of  Mr.  Mem- 
minger  at  a  -public  meeting  of  the  friends  of  cooperation  .  .  .  Charleston,  Sept.  23, 
1851, . .. ;  "Letter  from  W.  W.  Boyce  to  J.  P.  Richardson,  President  of  a  con- 
vention of  the  Southern  Rights  Association  of  South  Carolina  held  at  Charleston, 
May,  1851,"  republished  in  National  Intelligencer,  Nov.  13,  1860;  The  Letters 
of  Aricola,  by  Hon.  Wm.  Elliott;  Letter  of  Gen.  James  Hamilton  "To  the  People 
of  South  Carolina,"  Nov.  n,  1850,  National  Intelligencer,  Dec.  2,  1850. 

^National  Intelligencer,  Oct.  14,  1851,  quoting  the  Greenville,  S.  C.,  South- 
ern Patriot. 

™DeBou>'s  Review,  X,  231. 

40This  was  not  a  mere  abstract  question:  There  was  still  a  probability  that 
South  Carolina  would  secede  alone,  and  the  other  Southern  states  would  then 
be  compelled  to  determine  their  course  with  reference  to  the  coercion  of  a  seceded 
state.  Furthermore,  a  general  recognition  of  the  right  of  secession  would  prepare 
the  way  for  future  contests  over  its  expediency. 


79]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  MOVEMENT  79 

acquiesced  in  without  noteworthy  contests.41  Disunionists,  espec- 
ially disunionists  per  se,  were  in  a  small  minority.  There  were 
such,  however,  and  they  presented  the  disunion  arguments.  There 
was  considerable  discussion  of  the  proper  policy  to  be  pursued  in 
case  the  cotton  states  should  secede,  and  considerable  speculation 
in  regard  to  the  probable  effects  of  separation  from  the  North 
upon  the  economic  systems  of  the  respective  states.  Furthermore, 
disunionists  in  states  most  likely  to  secede  indulged  in  much 
speculation  as  to  what  other  states  would  be  included  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  proposed  Southern  confederacy,  and  advanced 
arguments  to  prove  that  it  would  be  to  the  interest  of  Virginia, 
Maryland,  or  other  particular  state  to  go  with  the  South  in  the 
event  of  a  dissolution.  Men  in  the  states  which  were  the  subjects 
of  such  speculation  had  to  take  cognizance. 

In  analyzing  the  arguments  of  an  economic  nature  which  were 
used  in  behalf  of  secession  or  in  behalf  of  taking  advanced  ground 
in  the  sectional  struggle,  it  is  not  necessary  to  specify  whether 
they  were  used  by  conditional  disunionists  or  unconditional  dis- 
unionists. The  arguments  used  by  the  one  class  differed  little 
from  those  used  by  the  other;  furthermore,  it  is  not  always  easy 
to  classify  any  gi^n  individual  on  this  basis. 

The  most  elaborate  calculation  of  the  value  of  the  Union  made 
during  the  crisis  may  be  found  in  a  long  and  well-written  pamph- 
let, published  early  in  1850,  entitled,  "The  Union,  Past  and  Fu- 
ture, How  It  Works  and  How  to  Save  It,"42  by  Muscoe  R.  H. 

"In  North  Carolina  the  minority  was  rather  strong.  In  the  Legislature  of 
1850-1851,  resolutions  affirming  the  constitutional  right  of  secession  were  defeated 
with  difficulty.  In  the  congressional  campaign  of  1851  the  right  of  secession  was 
an  issue;  the  opposition  gained  two  seats  in  Congress  as  a  result.  Cole,  Whig 
Party  in  the  South,  192;  Win.  K.  Boyd,  "North  Carolina  on  the  Eve  of  Seces- 
sion," in  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Rept.,  1910,  p.  171.  Cave  Johnson,  of  Tennessee, 
heard  secession  per  se  arguments  in  his  state.  Letter  to  James  Buchanan,  Jan. 
20,  1850,  in  St.  G.  L.  Sioussat,  "Tennessee,  the  Compromise  of  1850,  and  the 
Nashville  Convention,"  Miss.  Vol.  Hist.  Rev.,  II,  313-47. 

"Published  anonymously  in  Charleston,  1850;  republished,  several  years 
later,  in  DeBow's  Review,  XVIII  and  XIX,  passim.  The  pamphlet  was  re- 
viewed by  E.  Haskett  Derby,  Boston  lawyer,  in  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine, 

XXIII,  371-83,  and  in  a  pamphlet  Reality  versus  Fiction,  Boston,   1850.    Gar- 
nett  answered  Derby  in  an  article  in  Hunt's,  XXIV,  403-431,  "The  Union,  Past 
and  Future:  'A  Brief  Review'  Reviewed."    Derby  closed  the  argument,  Hunt's, 

XXIV,  659-681.    For  other  reviews  of  Garnett's  pamphlet  see  So.  Quar.  Rev., 
XIX,  189-226;  DeBow's  Review,  X,  132-146,  article,  "The  Future  of  the  South," 
by  Thomas  Prentice  Kettell. 


8O        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861       [80 

Garnett,  of  Virginia,  a  relative  of  R.  M.  T.  Hunter  and  Henry  A. 
Wise,  and  an  able  and  influential  politician  of  the  state  rights 
school.  Garnett  reviewed  the  slavery  struggle,  and  found  that  the 
South  had  reached  a  point  where  she  must  insist  upon  "sufficient 
guarantees  for  the  observance  of  her  rights  and  her  future  po- 
litical equality,  or  she  must  dissolve  a  Union  which  no  longer  pos- 
sesses its  original  character."  He  proposed  to  put  before  the 
North  what  she  would  lose  if  the  South  should  be  forced  to  take 
the  latter  alternative.  He  calculated  the  value  which  the  laws  dis- 
criminating against  foreign  shipping  had  been  to  the  North — an 
enormous  sum  according  to  his  method  of  calculation.  The  oper- 
ation of  the  tariff,  he  analyzed  in  the  usual  anti-protectionist  man- 
ner, and  calculated  that  between  1791  and  1845  "tne  slavehold- 
ing  States  paid  $316,492,083  more  than  their  just  share,  and  the 
free  States  as  much  less  .  .  .  ";  and  this  when,  according  to  his 
statement,  the  whole  amount  of  duties  collected  in  the  same  per- 
iod was  only  $927,050,097.  In  the  only  other  branch  of  public 
revenue  of  any  consequence,  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  public 
lands,  the  disproportion  of  Northern  and  Southern  contributions 
had  been  still  greater.  From  the  subject  of  taxation  Garnett 
passed  to  disbursements.  The  free  states  had  received  much 
larger  donations  of  the  public  lands.  Of  expenditures  for  collec- 
tion of  customs,  for  "bounties  on  pickled  fish,  and  the  allowances 
to  fishing  vessels,"  for  coast  fortifications,  for  light  houses,  for 
the  coast  survey,  for  internal  improvements,  for  Revolutionary 
pensions,  and  even  for  the  post  office  system,  the  South  had  re- 
ceived much  less  and  the  North  much  more  than  her  proportion- 
ate share.  The  public  debt,  held  mostly  in  the  North,  had  been 
the  source  of  yet  more  enormous  benefits  to  that  section.  In  sum- 
mary, he  said:  "The  heads  of  the  federal  expenditures  which  we 
have  examined  give  a  fair  notion  of  the  rest;  and  it  may  be  safely 
assumed,  that  while  the  South  has  paid  seven-ninths  of  the  taxes, 
the  North  has  had  seven-ninths  of  their  disbursements." 

According  to  Garnett  this  inequality  in  the  operation  of  the 
Federal  government  as  respects  the  sections  would  account  for 
the  growth  of  cities  and  the  prosperity  of  the  North.  The  effect 
upon  the  North  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  would  be  ruinous. 
She  would  have  to  rely  on  direct  taxation  to  support  her  govern- 
ment. The  South  on  the  other  hand  would  pay  less  taxes  and 
disburse  them  among  her  own  people.  She  would  conduct  her 
own  commerce  and  that  of  the  great  Northwest.  "Norfolk  and 


8l]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  8l 

Charleston  and  Savannah,  so  long  pointed  at  by  the  North  as  a 
proof  of  the  pretended  evils  of  slavery,  will  be  crowded  with 
shipping,  and  their  warehouses  crammed  with  merchandise."  The 
future  of  Southern  agriculture  would  be  equally  brilliant.  By 
virtue  of  her  command  of  the  great  staple  of  cotton,  her  great 
natural  advantages,  and  her  strategic  location  "midway  in  the  new 
hemisphere,  holding  the  outlets  of  Northern  commerce,  and  the 
approaches  to  South  America  and  the  Pacific,  through  the  Gulf," 
the  Southern  confederacy  would  occupy  a  powerful  position  in  the 
world.  The  pamphlet  was  concluded  with  a  glorification  of  slavery 
and  agriculture  and  a  depiction  of  the  demoralizing  influences  of 
factories;  for  Garnett  would  not  encourage  manufactures  in  his 
free  trade  republic. 

More  frequently  .quoted,  perhaps,  than  Garnett's  pamphlet  was 
an  article  in  the  Democratic  Review,  January,  1850,  written  by  the 
editor,  Thomas  Prentice  Kettell,  and  entitled,  "Stability  of  the 
Union."43  It  was  a  plea  to  the  people  of  the  North  not  to  attack 
an  institution  upon  which  their  prosperity  so  largely  depended;  it 
was  similar  in  strain  to  the  pleas  frequently  advanced  by  organs 
of  the  manufacturing  and  commercial  interests  of  the  North.44 
Kettell  said  nothing  about  unequal  operation  of  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment, but  emphasized  the  profits  realized  by  the  North  from 
manufacturing  for  the  South,  carrying  her  commerce,  and  acting 
as  her  banker.  The  annual  pecuniary  value  to  the  North  of  a 
union  with  the  South,  he  estimated  in  a  table45  containing  the  fol- 
lowing items: 

"Also  in  DeBow's  Review,  VIII,  348-363;  DeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  III, 
357-366. 

^See,  for  example,  DeBow's  Review,  IX,  93-100,  quoting  the  New  York 
Courier  and  Enquirer;  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XX,  292  ff.,  letter  of 
Colonel  Alexander  Hamilton,  of  New  York. 

"Democratic  Review,  XXVI,  13.  Quoted  in  Congress  by  Thomas  L.  Cling- 
man,  Cong.  Globe,  31  Cong.  I  Sess.,  203  ff.;  by  Downs,  of  Louisiana,  ibid.,  Appx., 
172;  by  Averett,  of  Virginia,  ibid.,  Appx.,  396;  Thomas  L.  Harris,  of  Illinois, 
ibid.,  Appx.,  411.  Mr.  Harris  said:  "But,  Mr.  Chairman,  several  gentlemen, 
both  here  and  in  the  other  end  of  the  Capitol  [Senate],  have  relied  upon  an 
article  in  a  late  number  of  the  Democratic  Review  to  show  that  the  North  is 
reaping  upward  of  $88,000,000  from  its  connection  with  the  South,  while  it  is 
careful  not  to  show  that  the  South  derives  any  benefit  from  the  North."  See 
also  Aaron  V.  Brown,  Speeches,  Congressional  and  Political,  and  Other  Writings, 
302  (Governor  of  Tennessee);  Charleston  Mercury,  Feb.  15,  1850,  quoted  in 
National  Intelligencer,  Feb.  20. 


82         ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1       [82 

Freights  of  Northern  shipping  on  Southern  produce. .  .$40,186,178 
Profits  derived  on  imports  at  the  North  for  Southern 

account 9,000,000 

Profits  on  exchange  operations 1,000,000 

Profits  on  Northern  manufactures  sold  at  the  South. .  22,250,000 

Profits  on  Western  produce  descending  the  Mississippi  10,000,000 

Profits  on  Northern  capital  employed  at  the  south . . .  6,000,000 

Total  earnings  of  the  North  per  annum $88,436,178 

There  was  nothing  in  KettelPs  article  to  indicate  that  the  South- 
ern people  received  any  pecuniary  advantages  from  their  union 
with  the  North.  Southern  men  quoted  his  table  not  only  to  show 
why  the  North  should  grant  justice  to  the  South,  but  also  what 
the  South  would  save  annually  by  a  dissolution  of  the  Union. 

Of  the  speeches  in  Congress  in  which  the  value  of  the  Union 
was  calculated,  perhaps  the  most  notable  was  that  of  Thomas  L. 
Clingman,  Whig,  of  North  Carolina.46  He  dwelt  upon  the  inequal- 
ity of  taxation  and  disbursements,  and  told  what  ample  revenues 
a  Southern  confederacy  could  command  with  a  tariff  of  thirty 
or  even  twenty  per  cent.  "Subjecting  the  goods  of  the  North  to  a 
duty,  with  those  from  other  foreign  countries,  would  at  once  give 
a  powerful  stimulus  to  our  own  manufactures."  He  described  the 
advantages  the  Southern  states  possessed  for  cotton  manufactur- 
ing, and  added,  "We  should  thus  have  that  diversity  of  pursuits 
which  is  most  conducive  to  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  a  peo- 
ple." John  C.  Calhoun  in  his  last  great  speech,  March  4,  1850,  did 
not  calculate  the  value  of  the  Union;  he  did,  however,  reiterate  his 
conviction  that  unequal  taxation  and  disbursements  had  caused 
that  loss  of  equilibrium  between  the  sections  which,  he  said,  was 
the  "great  and  primary  cause"  of  the  belief  of  the  Southern  people, 
"that  they  cannot  remain,  as  things  now  are,  consistently  with 
honor  and  safety,  in  the  Union."  Unequal  distribution  of  the  taxes 
and  disbursements  had  transferred  hundreds  of  millions  from  the 
South  to  the  North.  This  had  increased  the  population  of  the 

**Cong.  Globe,  31  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  200-207,  speech  in  the  House,  Jan.  22, 
1850;  Thomas  L.  Clingman,  Speeches  and  Writings,  245  ff.  Clingman  expressed 
similar  ideas  in  a  speech  in  the  House,  February  15,  1851,  Speeches  and  Writ- 
ings, 275  ff.  This  speech  was  regarded  in  the  South  as  the  platform  of  the 
ultras.  See  National  Intelligencer,  Feb.  I,  1850. 


83  ]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  83 

latter  by  attracting  immigration  from  all  quarters  and  sections. 
Had  the  South  retained  her  wealth  and  her  equality  in  the  terri- 
tories, she  would  have  divided,  at  least,  the  immigration.47 

Space  will  not  permit  an  account  of  the  contents  of  the  numer- 
ous pamphlets  and  speeches  occasioned  by  the  contests  in  South 
Carolina  and  elsewhere  over  the  acceptance  of  the  compromise 
measures.  One  example  will  suffice  to  illustrate  their  tone  and 
temper.  John  Townsend,  a  prominent  cooperationist  of  South 
Carolina,  in  a  vigorous  pamphlet  entitled,  The  Southern  States, 
Their  Present  Peril  and  Their  Certain  Remedy,  named  aboli- 
tionism as  the  peril  and  secession  as  the  remedy;  but  it  was  a 
remedy  for  more  than  the  dangers  threatening  slavery.  In  the 
usual  strain  he  told  of  the  unequal  operation  of  the  Federal  govern- 
ment and  its  effects.  He  described  the  vast  resources  of  the 
South,  and  said: 

How  different  will  be  the  aspect  of  things  in  the  whole  South, 
when  this  tide  of  wealth  is  dammed  up  within  our  own  borders, 
and  made  to  roll  back  ajpaong  our  own  people;  and  when  our  im- 
mense capital  is  employed  by  our  own  merchants  in  establishing 
a  direct  trade  between  our  own  Southern  ports  and  our  custom- 
ers all  over  the  world  .  .  .  The  arts  will  revive,  manufactures  will 
spring  up  around  us;  our  agriculture  will  rear  its  drooping  head, 
our  commerce  will  expand,  mechanic  labor,  meeting  with  ample 
rewards  will  pour  in  upon  us,  and  emigration  [sic],  no  longer  dis- 
couraged by  the  uninviting  aspect  of  our  country  will  flock  to  our 
shores.48 

In  the  United  States  Senate,  R.  B.  Rhett,  who  had  been  elected 
to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  death  of  Calhoun,  was  led  by  an 
attack  made  upon  him  by  Henry  S.  Foote,  of  Mississippi,49  to 
make  a  long  speech  explaining  why  he  was  a  secessionist — he  was 
the  leader  of  the  separate-actionists  in  his  state.  He  reviewed  the 

"Works,  IV,  542-73. 

**P.  17.  Other  secessionist  pamphlets  or  articles  were:  Wm.  H.  Trescott, 
The  Position  and  Course  of  the  South;  E.  B.  Bryan,  The  Rightful  Remedy.  Ad- 
dressed to  the  Slaveholders  of  the  South;  [A.  G.  Magrath],  A  Letter  on  South- 
ern Wrongs  and  Southern  Remedies:  Addressed  to  the  Hon.  W .  J.  Grayson  in 
reply  to  his  Letter  to  the  Governor  of  South  Carolina  on  the  Dissolution  of 
the  Union. 

"Foote  charged  Rhett  with  having  said  that  he  expected,  through  the 
agency  of  the  Nashville  Convention,  by  making  demands  to  which  he  knew 
Congress  would  not  accede,  to  break  up  the  Union.  Cong.  Globe,  32  Cong.,  I 
Sess.,  96. 


84        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,l84O-l86l       [84 

history  of  the  struggles  over  slavery,  and  charged  thaf^the  North- 
ern people  were  animated  by  a  desire  for  its  final  extinction.  But 
the  action  of  Congress  with  respect  to  slavery  in  the  territories,  he 
said,  was  only  a  sequence  in  a  course  of  policy  inimical  to  the 
South  which  had  been  pursued  many  years.  "If  I  mistake  not, 
from  the  very  foundation  of  this  Government  to  this  day,  the 
operation  of  it  in  its  financial  and  pecuniary  relations,  has  had 
but  one  uniform  tendency;  and  that  has  been,  to  aggrandize  the 
North  at  the  expense  of  the  South."  He  traced  the 'history  of 
the  tariff  from  the  beginning,  and  reviewed  the  whole  subject  of 
taxation  and  disbursements  in  a  manner  very  similar  to  that  of 
Garnett's  pamphlet.  "Is  it  wonderful,"  he  asked  ''that  under  such 
a  course  of  policy,  the  poorest  section  of  the'  Union  should  be  the 
richest,  and  the  South  should,  with  all  her  vast  resources,  linger 
in  her  prosperity?"  He  traced  the  decline  of  Southern  commerce, 
and  estimated  the  value  to  the  North  of  the  monopoly  of  the 
coasting  trade.  "The  South,"  he  said,  "is  nothing  else  now,  but 
the  very  best  colony  of  the  North  any  people  ever  possessed."50 
Rhett's  colleagues  understood  his  speech  to  be  an  argument  for 
secession  per  se.  Senator  Cass  so  took  it,  and  condemned  it.51 
Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  declared  that  his  state  had  no  sym- 
pathy with  those  who  "preferred  disunion."52  Senator  Downs,  of 
Louisiana,  asked  why  discuss  further  the  compromise  measures 
when  Rhett  had  himself  admitted  that  he  did  not  find  in  them 
sufficient  reason  to  justify  the  disunion  movement  which  he  had 
set  on  foot  in  South  Carolina.53  In  the  House,  E.  K.  Smart,  of 
Maine,  replied  in  detail,  with  a  yet  more  imposing  array  of  sta- 
tistics than  Rhett  had  used,  to  the  latter's  speech  and  to  one  of 
somewhat  similar  tone  which  had  been  made  in  the  House  by  A. 
G.  Brown,  of  Mississippi.54  He  did  so,  he  explained,  because  "I 
have  often  thought  that  a  fair  and  candid  investigation  of  the 
benefits  and  advantages  of  this  Government,  enjoyed  by  the 
South,  would  disarm  the  spirit  of  disunion;  that  our  southern 
friends,  by  an  examination  of  the  facts,  would  be  induced  to  de- 
mand less  of  the  North." 

*°Cong.  Globe,  32  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  42-8. 
"Ibid.,  32  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  146. 
"Ibid.,  32  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  49. 
"Ibid.,  32  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  98. 
"Ibid.,  32  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  Appx.,  464-71. 


85]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE   SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  85 

Unionists  did  not  fail  to  seek  other  causes  than  the  quarrel  over 
slavery  and  the  fears  for  the  security  of  that  institution  for  the 
existence  of  disunion  sentiment  in  the  South.  F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  in 
an  address  to  the  citizens  of  Tuscaloosa,  Alabama,  said  he  be- 
lieved there  were  causes  much  deeper  than  the  slavery  agitation 
for  the  war  which  had  been  waged  to  the  knife  against  the  Union. 
The  agitators  had  seized  upon  the  soreness  produced  in  the 
Southern  mind  by  the  infringement  of  undeniable  rights  as  the 
most  available  means  of  accomplishing  their  ulterior  designs.  He 
retold  the  story  of  South  Carolina  nullification;  the  people  of  that 
state  were  still  bitter  from  the  old  feud,  he  said.  A  conviction  pre- 
vailed that  the  Union  had  been  unequal  in  its  benefits:  "Such  a 
conviction  has  been,  is  probably  at  this  moment,  partaken  by 
very  many  who  feel  no  disposition  to  rush  into  disunion  as  a 
remedy.  Indeed  the  impression  seems  extensively  to  exist,  that, 
by  the  operation  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  through  Federal 
Legislation,  the  South  has  oeen  made  in  some  sort,  tributary  to 
the  North."  He  told  of  Southern  dependence  upon  the  North  for 
manufactures,  of  the  sensitiveness  of  the  Southern  people  about 
the  matter,  and  their  analysis  of  the  causes  of  their  dependence. 
"From  this  condition  of  things  our  people  have  become  impatient 
to  be  free;  and  this  it  is  ...  more  truly  than  any  other  existing 
evil,  which  has  caused  the  word  disunion  to  be  of  late  so  often 
and  so  lightly  spoken  among  us,  and  the  thought  of  what  it  signi- 
fies to  be  contemplated  with  so  little  horror."85  The  Richmond 
Whig  thought  much  of  the  dissatisfaction  in  South  Carolina  had 
originated  in  having  attributed  to  the  Federal  government  conse- 
quences which  were  rather  attributable  to  the  competition  of 
fresher  and  more  fertile  states  of  the  South,  engaged  in  the  cul- 
ture of  the  same  staple  as  herself.56 

The  Unionists  in  the  cotton  states  in  their  contests  with  the 
Southern  Rights  parties  found  their  best  tactics  to  be  to  defend 
the  compromise  measures,  appeal  to  the  patriotism  of  the 


^Oration   Delivered  before   the    Citizens   of    Tuscaloosa,   Alabama,   July   4, 
1851,  12. 

""March  5,  1851.   A  similar  statement  is  in  an  editorial  of  March  22. 


86        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [86 

masses,57  impeach  the  motives  of  Southern  Rights  leaders,  and 
picture  secession  as  a  measure  that  would  bathe  the  nation  in 
blood.  They  showed  that  secession  meant  division  of  the  South; 
for  the  border  states  could  not  be  expected  to  secede.58  In  par- 
ticular localities  they  pointed  out  how  separation  would  injure  es- 
tablished commercial  and  agricultural  interests.  In  general  they 
did  not  find  it  necessary  tc  refute  at  length  the  doctrine  that  the 
prosperity  of  the  South  suffered  from  an  unequal  operation  of  the 
Federal  government.  No  doubt  many  shared  this  view  to  some  ex- 
tent. Yet  there  was  a  fundamental  divergence  in  the  views  of  the 
two  groups  as  to  the  Union's  economic  effects  upon  the  sections. 
Unionists  were  inclined  to  depict  the  unexampled  peace  and 
progress  in  wealth  and  strength  of  the  great  republic  and  to  con- 
sider the  South  a  partaker  therein.59  The  Mobile  Daily  Advertiser 
said  Alabama  was  never  more  prosperous.  "Why  cannot  secession 
orators  be  serious?"60  Said  H.  S.  Foote  of  Mississippi:  "It  is 
sufficient  for  us  to  know  that  the  Union  is  of  inappreciable  value 
to  every  portion  of  this  widespread  Republic;  .  .  .  That  the  gen- 
eral action  of  the  government  has  been  more  or  less  unequal  and 
oppressive  to  our  local  interests  of  the  South,  cannot  be  denied."61 
Particularly  in  Georgia,  the  most  prosperous  of  the  cotton  states, 
was  the  plea  effective  that  the  state  owed  its  prosperity  to  the 
Union.  The  Richmond  Whig  ascribed  the  Union  victory  in 
Georgia  to  prosperity — the  refusal  of  the  people  to  be  convinced 
that  the  Union  had  inflicted  any  injury  upon  them.62  General 
James  Hamilton,  who  traveled  through  the  cotton  states  in  the 

"Henry  W.  Hilliard  said:  "The  value  of  the  Union  which  binds  these  States 
together  is  incalculable;  its  priceless  value  defies  all  the  ordinary  methods  of 
computation;  it  is  consecrated  by  battles,  and  triumphs,  and  glories,  which  be- 
long to  the  past;  ....  it  secures  to  us  innumerable  blessings;  it  looks  forward  to 
a  future  still  more  prosperous  and  more  glorious  than  the  past."  Cong.  Globe, 
31  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  34. 

"Speech  of  Senator  Jere  Clemens,  in  Huntsville,  Alabama,  Nov.  4,  1850,  in 
National  Intelligencer,  Nov.  10;  letter  from  Joel  R.  Poinsett  to  the  people  of 
S.  C.,  Charleston  Mercury,  Dec.  5. 

*9Grayson,  W.  J.,  Letter  to  the  Governor  of  South  Carolina  on  the  Dissolu- 
tion of  the  Union,  p.  8.  This  is  one  of  the  best  of  the  Union  pamphlets. 

'"Quoted  in  the  National  Intelligencer,  Dec.  6,  1850. 

"Cong.,  Globe,  32  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  59,  reply  to  Rhett. 

"Mar.  5,  1851. 


87]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  87 

compromise  year,  made  a  similar  diagnosis;  in  Georgia  and  Ala- 
bama the  high  price  of  cotton  had  neutralized  the  disunion  senti- 
ment, while  Louisiana  had  "an  average  sugar  crop  and  would 
acquiesce."63 

Unionists,  in  so  far  as  they  admitted  "Southern  decline,"  were 
disposed  to  emphasize  explanations  for  it  other  than  the  fiscal 
action  of  the  Federal  government.  The  majority  of  them  were 
Whigs,  who  had,  in  general,  supported  those  protective  and  fiscal 
measures  to  which  disunionists  ascribed  the  woes  of  the  South. 
The  Unionists  dwelt  upon  such  causes  for  lagging  prosperity  as 
overproduction  of  cotton,  lack  of  diversity  in  agriculture,  and  the 
failure  to  encourage  home  manufactures.  They  showed  how  the 
older  states  had  suffered  from  the  emigration  of  their  citizens  to 
the  richer  and  fresher  lands  of  the  Southwest.  Up  to  this  time  at 
least,  the  Whigs  had  given  mo/e  earnest  support  than  the  Demo- 
crats to  those  movements  for  the  diversification  of  industry  which 
have  been  described  in  previous  chapters,  and  at  this  juncture 
they  advocated  it  as  a  better  method  than  secession  for  securing 
the  rights  and  prosperity  of  the  South.64 

The  position  of  New  Orleans  as  an  exporting  and  importing 
center  for  the  Mississippi  valley  plainly  operated  against  the 
growth  of  disunion  sentiment  in  Louisiana;  men  of  that  state  in- 
sisted that  the  valley  could  not  be  divided.65  Few  from  Kentucky 
and  Missouri  calculated  the  value  of  the  Union.  Humphrey 
Marshall,  of  Kentucky,  offered  an  explanation  for  the  strong  at- 
tachment of  those  states  for  the  Union.  There  was  a  region,  he 
said,  where  cotton  and  sugar  did  not  grow,  and  where  manufac- 
tures and  navigation  were  not  the  only  employments.  "The  inter- 
ests of  that  people  are  identical,  no  matter  whether  they  live  in  a 
free  State  or  a  slave  State,  and  they  cannot  be  induced  to  sacrifice 
their  welfare  or  their  friendship  for  the  triumph  of  any  extreme 
doctrine  about  slavery.""36  Governor  Crittenden  expressed  the 
same  idea:  "To  Kentucky  and  the  other  Western  States  in  the 

68"To  the  People  of  South  Carolina,"  in  National  Intelligencer,  Dec.  2,  1850. 
84See  Barnard,  F.  A.  P.,  Oration  Delivered  before  the  Citizens  of  Tuscaloosa, 
Alabama,  July  4,  1851.   Cf.    Cole,  Whig  Party  in  the  South,  206-211. 

"Speech  of  Downs  in  the  Senate,  Cong.  Globe,  31,  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  171. 
wlbid.,  31  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  409. 


88        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861       [88 

Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Union  is  indispensable  to  their 
commercial  interests."07 

In  North  Carolina  the  disunion  per  se  arguments  were  well  re- 
futed. The  absence  of  identity  of  interests  between  the  two  Car- 
olinas  was  occasionally  emphasized.  Said  Congressman  Stanley, 
Whig:  "  ....  we  are  invited  to  contemplate  the  glories  of  a 
Southern  Confederacy,  in  which  Virginia  and  South  Carolina  are 
to  have  great  cities,  to  be  supported  by  the  colony  or  plantation  of 
North  Carolina!"68  Perhaps  in  no  state  other  than  the  older  cot- 
ton states  was  a  greater  disposition  shown  to  listen  to  the  uncon- 
ditional disunion  arguments  than  in  eastern  Virginia.  But  there 
were  strong  deterrant  influences:  trade  both  with  the  North  and 
South;  prospects  of  valuable  commercial  relations  with  the  West 
when  the  great  internal  improvement  system  already  projected 
should  make  Virginia  -he  "thoroughfare  and  rendezvous  of  our 
great  and  united  sisterhood  of  states;"69  and,  more  important,  the 
devotion  to  the  Union  >f  the  western  part  of  the  state,  whose 
economic  interests  were  imilar  to  those  of  other  parts  of  the  Ohio 
valley  rather  than  to  th"  se  of  the  South.70 

It  will  have  been  ob.-  erved  that  disunion  sentiment  and  a  dis- 
position to  put  a  low  estimate  upon  the  value  of  the  Union  were 
not  uniformly  distributed  throughout  the  slaveholding  states.  It 
is  true  that  the  states  in  which  the  strongest  secession  movements 
developed  were  those  in  which  the  ratios  of  black  to  white  popula- 
tion were  highest.  (However,  it  is  difficult  to  demonstrate  that 
within  such  states  secession  sentiment  was  especially  strong  in  the 
black  belts.)  But  the  states  in  which  the  disunion  movements 
were  strongest  were  also  the  states  most  dependent  commercially 
and  industrially — or,  to  use  Calhoun's  phrase,  they  were  the 
"exporting  states."  They  were  the  states,  too,  in  which  the  doc- 
trine that  the  Federal  government  operated  to  make  one  section 
tributary  to  the  other  in  an  economic  way  had  early  found  wide- 
spread acceptance. 

"Coleman,  The  Life  of  John  J.  Crittenden,  I,  350-52.  Cf.  Speech  of  Henry 
Clay  in  the  Senate,  Cong.  Globe,  31  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  127. 

mlbid.,  31  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  Appx.,  409. 

"Letter  from  William  C.  Rives,  U.  S.  Minister  to  France,  in  National  In- 
telligencer, May  I,  1850. 

TOCf.    Ambler,  Sectionalism  in  Virginia,  248  f. 


89]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE   SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  89 

The  evidence  in  regard  to  party  affiliations  is,  perhaps,  more 
conclusive  as  to  motives.  In  the  South  as  a  whole  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  Whig  party,  as  we  have  seen,  was  Unionist  and 
accepted  the  compromise  measures  without  much  dissatisfaction. 
It  would  seem  that  the  disunionists  of  1850,  and  those  who  con- 
templated disunion  with  complacency,  were  chiefly  of  the  Calhoun 
wing  of  the  Democratic  party;  many  of  them  had  been  Nullifica- 
tionists.  The  Union  Democrats  of  1850,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
chiefly  of  Jackson,  Benton,  and  Van  Buren  antecedents. 

In  South  Carolina  the  alignment  is  not  diffiicult  to  see.  The 
Unionists  were,  in  the  main,  the  remnants  of  the  Whig  party.  Of 
the  leaders  of  the  Union  group,  J.  J.  Pettigru,  B.  F.  Perry,  Judge 
John  Benton  O'Neall,  Richard  Yeadon,  and  W.  J.  Grayson  were 
Whigs,  Joel  R.  Poinsett  was  a  Jackson  .Democrat;  all  had  been 
Union  men  in  1832.  Waddy  Thompson, 'j^Vhig,  was  the  one  con- 
spicuous example  of  a  former  Nullifier  turnjed  Unionist.  Of  the  sep- 
arate-actionists,  all  the  prominent  leacjfs  who  had  figured  in 
Nullification  days  had  been  Nullifiers;  i^  .this  category  fell  R.  B. 
Rhett,  B.  F.  Duncan,  F.  W.  Pickens,  I.  ^Holmes,  W.  F.  Colcock, 
A.  Burt,  and  Maxcy  Gregg.  With  one  »#ception  these  men  had 
been  leaders  also  of  the  Bluffton  movement  of  1844.  Of  the  co- 
operationists  of  1851,  the  majority  of  the  prominent  leaders  had 
been  Nullifiers;  of  this  class  were  A.  P.  Butler,  J.  H.  Hammond, 
James  Hamilton,  William  S.  Preston,  F.  L.  Wardlaw,  and  W.  W. 
Boyce.  Other  prominent  cooperationists  had  been  Unionists  in 
1832;  in  this  class  were  ex-Governor  J.  P.  Richardson,  Daniel  E. 
Huger,  Richard  I.  Manning,  C.  G.  Memminger,  and  James  Ches- 
nut.  Langdon  Cheves  had  been  a  cooperationist  in  1832.  All  of 
the  secessionists  named  were  Democrats  except  William  S. 
Preston,  cooperationist,  who  was  a  state  rights  Whig. 

In  July,  1850,  John  H.  Lumpkin,  of  Georgia,  wrote  Howell 
Cobb:  "All  who  are  for  resistance  and  for  disunion  will  be  found 
in  the  ranks  of  the  democratic  party;  and  if  their  history  should 
be  known,  they  will  be  found  out  to  be  old  Nullifiers  in  i832."T1 
Other  Union  Democrats  of  Georgia  complained  of  those  "secession 
views  which  have  long  been  entertained  by  a  school  of  Southern 
politicians  which  have  always  injured  and  weakened,  never  bene- 

"July  21.    Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence. 


9O        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [90 

fited  or  strengthened  the  Democratic  party."72  The  Union  Demo- 
crats were  almost  exclusively  from  the  northern  counties,  which 
had  never  accepted  the  teachings  of  the  Carolina  school.  Such 
prominent  leaders  of  the  Southern  Rights  party  as  C.  J.  Mc- 
Donald, George  M.  Troup,  Joseph  H.  Lumpkin,  W.  F.  Colquitt, 
H.  L.  Benning,  William  H.  Stiles,  J.  N.  Bethune,  and  John  A. 
Jones  had  long  been  leaders  of  the  state  rights  wing  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  However,  in  Georgia  perhaps  to  a  greater  extent  than 
any  other  Southern  state,  the  Whig  party  had  retained  its  state 
rights  element;  this  element,  with  exceptions  such  as  J.  M.  Ber- 
rien,  cooperated  with  their  fellows  in  the  Union  movement  of  1850. 
The  latter  fact  probably  explains  why  the  Union  Convention  of 
1850  did  not  deny  the  constitutional  right  of  secession  as  did  the 
Unionists  in  Alabama  and  Mississippi.73 

In  Alabama  the  nullifying  state  rights  faction  went  into  the 
Democratic  party  with  Calhoun  about  1840;  after  that  time  the 
state  rights  element  of  the  Whig  party  was  comparatively  small. 
But  the  cleavage  between  the  Calhoun  wing  of  the  Democrats,  led 
by  such  men  as  Dixon  H.  Lewis,  J.  M.  Calhoun,  W.  L.  Yancey, 
the  Elmores,  and  David  Hubbard,  and  the  Jackson  wing  whose 
leaders  were  Wm.  R.  King,  Benjamin  Fitzpatrick,  Jere  Clemens, 
W.  R.  W.  Cobb,  etc.,  remained  clear  for  years.74  In  1845 
Dixon  H.  Lewis  wrote  of  the  "Calhoun  wing  of  the  Party."  It 
was  this  wing  of  the  party  which  formed  the  Southern  Rights 
party  in  1851,  and  sought  to  prepare  the  state  for  secession.  The 
other  wing  not  only  allied  with  the  Whigs  to  form  the  Union  party 
but  denied  the  constitutional  right  of  secession.75 

In  Mississippi  the  situation  was  very  similar  to  that  in  Ala- 
bama. J.  A.  Wilcox,  a  Union  Democrat  elected  in  1851,  identified 
the  Southern  Rights  men  of  his  state,  whom  he  denounced  as 

"John  E.  Ward  and  Henry  R.  Jackson  to  Howell  Cobb,  Feb.  28,  1852,  in 
Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence, 

"Cf.   Hodgson,  The  Cradle  of  the  Confederacy,  283. 

nlbid.,  ch.  XI;  Garrett,  Reminiscences  of  Public  Men  in  Alabama,  297. 
The  author,  in  telling  why  David  Hubbard,  of  Lawrence,  a  Calhoun  man,  never 
attained  the  senatorship,  says:  "The  same  reasons  which  influenced  the  Jackson 
Democracy  in  withholding  their  support  in  former  days  from  the  men  who  came 

over  with  Mr.  Calhoun,  operated  against  him  in  these  aspirations; "  Garrett 

constantly  recognizes  the  division  in  the  Democratic  party. 

"Hodgson,  op.  cit.,  294-296. 


91  ]  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SOUTHERN   MOVEMENT  QI 

disunionists,  as  "old-line  Democrats."  This  term  he  defined  as 
designating  those  whom  Jackson  had  driven  from  the  party  in 
1832-1833.  After  that  year,  he  said,  they  had  acted  with  the  Whigs 
until  1840,  when  they  followed  Calhoun  back  into  the  Democratic 
ranks.76  This  description  is  accurate  with  the  exception  that  it 
takes  no  account  of  a  small  element  in  the  Whig  party  which  had 
not  followed  Calhoun  in  1840,  but  which  nevertheless  cooperated 
with  the  Southern  Rights  party  in  1851.  The  leader  of  this  party 
was  John  A.  Quitman,  a  native  of  South  Carolina,  a  Nullifier,  and 
a  supporter  of  Calhoun  against  Van  Buren  in  1844.™ 

In  no  state  can  the  division  in  the  Democratic  ranks  be  more 
clearly  seen  than  in  Virginia.  There  the  Calhoun  men  constituted 
a  well  defined  group.  For  a  number  of  years  they  acted  almost 
as  a  third  party  holding  the  balance  of  power  between  the  Whigs 
and  the  Democrats.  In  1843-1844  they  tried  to  secure  the  Demo- 
cratic nomination  for  the  presidency  for  Calhoun.  In  1847  they 
were  able,  by  taking  advantage  of  factional  fights  in  the  general 
assembly,  to  elect  R.  M.  T.  Hunter  and  J.  M.  Mason  to  the  Sen- 
ate. Thereafter  they  gradually  tightened  their  grip  upon  the 
Democratic  party.78  But  in  1850,  and  later,  leaders  still  spoke 
of  the  "Calhoun  wing"  or  the  "States  Rights  party"  almost  as  if 
it  were  a  distinct  organization.79  Their  strength  lay  chiefly  in  east- 

nCong.  Globe,  32  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  282-285. 

"Claiborne,  Life  and  Correspondence  of  John  A.  Quitman,  I,  211-15 — a  cir- 
cular written  by  Quitman  for  his  political  friends,  1845.  The  factional  differences 
in  Mississippi  may  be  traced  quite  readily  in  the  correspondence  of  Quitman. 
In  1835,  he  wrote:  "....the  people  of  this  state  are  one-third  for  Van  Buren, 
one-third  Nullifiers,  and  one-third  Whigs."  P.  139.  In  December,  1838,  he 
wrote:  "I  shall  cooperate  freely  arid  boldly  with  all  genuine  Republicans,  be 
they  Democrats  or  Nullifiers,  in  asserting  the  principles  to  which  I  have  alluded." 
P.  167.  In  1845:  "In  politics  I  hold  much  the  same  position  as  Calhoun  and 

Troup In  1844  I  preferred,  as  I  had  before  and  do  now,  Mr.  Calhoun  to 

any  other  man  for  the  presidency,  but  I  acquiesced  in  the  nomination  of  Van 
Buren,  and,  until  the  appearance  of  his  anti-Texas  letter,  gave  him  my  zealous 
support."  P.  214. 

7*These  statements  are  based  upon  numerous  letters  in  the  Correspondence 
of  John  C.  Calhoun,  Correspondence  of  R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  and  /.  H.  Hammond 
Papers,  as  well  as  newspaper  material,  etc.,  and  agree,  I  believe,  with  Ambler, 
Thomas  Ritchie  and  Sectionalism  in  Virginia. 

^Correspondence  of  R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  especially  letters:  James  A.  Seddon  to 
Hunter,  June  16,  1848;  L.  W.  Tazewell  to  Hunter,  Aug.  18,  1850;  Seddon  to 
Hunter,  Feb.  7,  1852. 


92         ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1       [92 

ern  Virginia.  Their  leaders  were  very  able;  among  them  were  R. 
M.  T.  Hunter,  J.  M.  Mason,  James  A.  Seddon,  Henry  A.  Wise, 
Lewis  E.  Harvie,  Beverly  Tucker,  William  O.  Goode,  Wm.  F. 
Gordon,  Willoughby  Newton,  Richard  K.  Cralle,  M.  R.  H.  Gar- 
nett,  and  Edmund  Ruffin.  It  was  this  wing  that  supported  the 
Nashville  Convention  and  furnished  most  of  the  delegates;80  in 
this  wing  virtually  all  of  the  Virginia  disunionists  and  those  of 
disunionist -leanings  were  to  be  found  in  1850. 

Now,  to  be  sure,  the  State  Rights  party  claimed  to  be  cham- 
pions and  defenders  of  slavery  par  excellence,  as  well  as  of  other 
Southern  interests.  But  this  claim  was  not  admitted  by  their  op- 
ponents, and  had  no  basis  in  actual  property  interest  in  slaves. 
The  Whig  party  contained  at  least  its  proportionate  share  of  the 
slaveholders.  Whig  leaders  claimed,  with  justification  it  seems, 
that  most  of  the  large  slaveholders  belonged  to  their  party.  Whigs 
had,  of  course,  reasons  for  supporting  the  compromise  measures 
originating  in  the  party  considerations;  for  the  administration 
under  whose  auspices  the  measures  were  enacted  was  Whig.  But 
after  all  qualifications  are  made,  no  explanation  of  the  alignment 
of  the  parties  and  factions  in  the  South  upon  the  question  of 
Union  or  disunion  is  complete  which  does  not  take  in  account  the 
previous  history  and  the  origin  of  the  parties. 


"Tucker,  Goode,  Gordon,  and  Newton  were  delegates  to  the  first  session  of 
the  Nashville  Convention,  and  Gordon  was  the  only  representative  of  Virginia 
in  the  second. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE 
WITH  EUROPE,  1847-1860. 

Although  for  a  number  of  years  after  the  direct  trade  conven- 
tions of  the  18305  no  attempts  were  made  to  revive  Southern 
foreign  commerce  comparable  to  the  efforts  of  those  conventions, 
at  no  time  did  the  people  of  the  South  become  reconciled  to  com- 
mercial dependence  upon  the  North.  The  suspension  of  the  dis- 
cussion of  direct  trade  was  due  to  the  general  stagnation  of  busi- 
ness and  the  distrust  of  all  enterprise  which  characterized  a  period 
of  several  years  following  the  commercial  crisis  of  1837. 

In  1845  and  1846  there  was  discussion  in  Congress  and  the 
country  at  large  of  the  policy  of  adopting  the  warehousing  sys- 
tem. The  system  permitted  goods  imported  from  abroad  to  be 
placed  in  bonded  warehouses  with  payments  of  duties  when  the 
goods  were  withdrawn,  unless  withdrawn  for  re-export,  in  which 
case  no  duties  were  to  be  collected.  The  warehousing  system  met 
with  general  favor  in  the  South,  and  overenthusiastic  individuals 
hailed  it  as  the  panacea  which  would  restore  Southern  foreign 
commerce.1  The  cash  duties  system,  they  said,  prevented  South- 
ern merchants,  who  generally  had  limited  capital  and  credit,  from 
importing  for  re-exportation,  and  gave  the  advantage  to  Northern 
importers  of  larger  means.  The  warehousing  system  would  enable 
New  Orleans  to  become  the  half-way  house  between  Europe  and 
Mexico,  and  Charleston  to  conduct  the  commerce  between 
Europe  and  the  West  Indies.  According  to  the  memorial  to 
Congress  from  the  New  Orleans  Chamber  of  Commerce,  the  want 
of  a  warehousing  system  had  driven  the  Mexican  trade  to  Ha- 
vana.2 J.  D.  B.  DeBow  thought  that,  if  there  was  ever  to  be  any 
foreign  commerce  in  the  South,  such  a  system  must  have  a  great 
influence  in  bringing  it  about.3  Congress  enacted  a  warehousing 
law,  effective  August  6,  1846.*  Being  a  step  in  the  direction  of 

Southern  Literary  Messenger,  XI,  508,  567,  577,  584,  articles  by  Lieut.  M. 
F.  Maury. 

'DeBotv's  Review,  II,  408. 

'Ibid.,  II,  193. 

'Acts  and  Resolutions,  29  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  p.  83. 

93 


94        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l       [94 

free  trade,  it  undoubtedly  benefited  commerce;5  but  more  than  a 
warehousing  law  was  necessary  to  effect  a  revolution  in  the  course 
of  Southern  trade. 

With  the  reawakened  spirit  of  progress  in  the  South  during  the 
latter  half  of  the  fifth  decade,  came  a  general  renewal  of  dis- 
cussion of  direct  trade  with  Europe.  This  period  witnessed  a  re- 
vival of  prosperity  in  all  parts  of  the  Union.  Numerous  railroad 
projects  took  form,  and  construction  upon  a  large  scale  was  un- 
dertaken. With  the  extension  of  our  national  boundaries  to  the 
Pacific  and  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California,  grandiose  schemes 
were  conceived  for  establishing  communication  with  the  Pacific 
coast  by  rail  or  water.  In  the  South  one  manifestation  of  the  new 
spirit  was  a  revival  of  the  direct  trade  movement.  In  1847  DeBow 
said  the  subject  of  direct  trade  was  once  again  receiving  atten- 
tion;6 and  numerous  long  articles  in  his  newly  founded  DeBow's 
Review  attest  to  the  revival  of  interest.  He  republished  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Augusta  and  Charleston  conventions  and  the  re- 
ports of  McDuffie,  Hayne,  Elmore,  and  Longstreet.  "We  would 
recall  those  scenes  and  times,"  he  said.7  But  whereas  in  those 
times  the  direct  trade  movement  was  pretty  much  confined  to 
the  Atlantic  seaboard,  now  it  spread  to  the  Gulf  ports  and  the 
entire  South.  Until  1861  nothing  was  recognized  with  more  stead- 
fastness and  unanimity  as  a  proper  element  in  the  policy  not  only 
of  seaports  but  of  the  South  as  a  section  than  the  encouragement 
of  direct  trade.  It  was  a  subject  of  constant  discussion  in  the 
press.  Conventions  were  held  to  consider  plans  for  promoting  it. 
It  held  a  prominent  place  in  all  the  sessions  of  the  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention,  which  met  regularly  from  1852  to  1859,  and 
was  given  consideration  in  the  less  regular  Cotton  Planters'  Con- 
vention. Plans  for  achieving  it  demanded  consideration  from 
chambers  of  commerce,  city  councils,  and  state  legislatures,  as 
well  as  from  individuals. 

In  the  fifties,  as  in  the  thirties,  commercial  dependence  was  be- 
lieved to  be  responsible  for  the  transfer  of  much  Southern  wealth 

'Lieutenant  Maury  wrote  a  few  years  later:  "These  importers  [direct]  and 
the  warehousing  system  are  recovering  back  for  the  South  a  portion  of  the  direct 
trade."  DeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  III,  14. 

"DeBow's  Review,  III,  557. 

''Ibid.,  Ill,  558. 


95]  PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE  95 

to  the  North  in  the  form  of  profits;  as  in  the  thirties,  it  was  said 
that  the  Northern  merchants  and  ship  owners  reaped  large  profits 
from  importing  for  the  Southern  states  and  conducting  their 
foreign  and  coastwise  commerce.  The  estimated  total  of  the  sums 
abstracted  from  the  yearly  product  of  Southern  industry  in  the 
form  of  importers'  profits,  interest  upon  advances,  freight  charges, 
insurance,  commissions,  port  and  wharf  charges,  and  the  expenses 
of  Southern  merchants  who  went  North  to  purchase  their  stocks, 
had  grown  with  the  nation's  commerce  and  shipping,  and,  by  the 
processes  of  Southern  arithmetic,  had  become  enormous  indeed. 
Said  William  Gregg:  "It  is  a  hopeless  task  to  undertake  to  even 
approximate  the  vast  sums  of  wealth  which  have  been  trans- 
ferred from  the  South  to  the  North  by  allowing  the  Northern 
cities  to  import  and  export  for  us."8  Joseph  Segar,  of  Virginia, 
cited  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  showing  the  im- 
ports and  exports  of  the  United  States  for  1856  to  have  been 
$314,000,000  and  $326,000,000  respectively.  "Now  the  commer- 
cial profit  of  this  vast  amount  of  business  inures  almost  exclusive- 
ly to  the  north.  The  South  has  scarcely  a  say  in  the  matter.  She 
not  only  surrenders  nearly  all  the  profit  on  the  import  trade,  but 
our  productions — the  basis  of  our  exports — are  mostly  shipped 
to  Northern  cities,  and  thence  reshipped  in  Northern  bottoms  to 
the  foreign  market,  so  that  she  actually  loses  the  factorage  on  her 
own  productions.  Such  a  state  of  things  is  an  annual  loss  to  her 
of  numerous  millions,  and  her  bitter  reproach."9  Another  Virgin- 
ian calculated,  in  1853,  tnat  Virginia  lost  $9,539,037.76  annually 
by  "allowing"  New  York  to  carry  her  trade.10 

To  such  statements  as  these,  and  there  were  hundreds  of  them, 
it  was  not  sufficient  to  reply,  as  Northern  men  frequently  did,  that 
what  the  North  got  was  only  a  fair  commercial  remuneration.11 
True,  people  in  the  South  considered  the  remuneration  too  great 
because  the  indirect  course  of  trade,  by  reason  of  the  greater  mile- 
age, the  extra  transhipments  necessary,  and  the  mediation  of  a 
greater  number  of  middlemen,  each  of  whom  must  exact  a  profit, 
made  foreign  goods  more  costly  to  the  ultimate  purchasers  than 

'DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  82. 

'Ibid.,  XXII,  515. 

"Ibid.,  XIV,  501. 

"Olmsted,  The  Cotton  Kingdom,  II,  301. 


g6        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861      [96 

would  the  direct  course.  Many  believed  they  were  being  ex- 
ploited by  Northern  merchants  and  financiers,  made  the  prey  of 
manipulators,  and  made  to  pay  extortionate  prices.  But  the  rather 
characteristic  reply  quoted  above  portrays  inability  or  unwilling- 
ness to  grasp  the  chief  reasons  for  dissatisfaction  in  the  South  with 
the  manner  in  which  Southern  commerce  was  conducted. 

As  in  an  earlier  period  discussed,  so  in  this  it  was  believed  that 
Northern  seaports  owed  their  phenomenal  growth  and  prosperity 
very  largely  to  their  control  of  Southern  foreign  commerce.  It 
was  a  logical  conclusion  that,  could  this  commerce  be  conducted 
by  Southern  seaports,  they  would  enjoy  like  prosperity.  And  in 
the  18505  the  people  of  every  Southern  seaport  of  any  preten- 
sions whatever  had  the  natural  and  laudable  ambition  to  make 
it  a  great  commercial  center.  William  S.  Forrest  in  his  Sketches 
of  Norfolk  rather  naively  related  that  upon  September  26,  1850, 
the  Honorable  Henry  A.  Wise,  of  Accomac,  "spoke  with  startling 
eloquence,  and  most  convincing  power  of  argument,  of  the  reason 
that  Norfolk  is  not  already  a  great  city,  and  of  the  means  by 
which  she  may  become  a  great  Southern  emporium."12  There  was 
much  of  this  type  of  eloquence. 

The  public  had  no  reason  to  be  uninformed  in  regard  to  the 
relative  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  every  Southern  port. 
The  jealousy  of  rivals  displayed  in  some  of  the  cities  is  rather 
amusing,  considering  the  inconsequence  of  the  majority  of  them; 
although  it  had  rather  important  influence  upon  the  location  of 
railroads  in  the  South,  and  possibly  some  small  influence  detri- 
mental to  the  success  pf  projects  for  direct  trade  with  Europe. 

The  citizens  of  Norfolk  hoped  much  from  her  splendid  harbor 
and  strategic  location  at  the  entrance  of  the  Chesapeake.  Rich- 
mond, upon  the  James  river,  was  a  larger  town,  more  centrally 
located  with  reference  to  Virginia,  possessed  of  the  advantage  of 
being  the  capital  of  the  state,  and  her  people  were  determined  to 
make  her  the  commercial  capital  of  Virginia,  if  not  of  a  much 
larger  territory.  The  people  of  North  Carolina  regretted  the 

"P.  260.  The  same  thought  recurs  frequently,  for  example:  ''There  are 
many  thinking,  practical,  and  intelligent  men,  who  believe  that  Norfolk,  at  some 
not  very  distant  period  in  the  history  of  the  world,  will  be  a  great  city.  Every 
person,  who  thinks  upon  the  subject  at  all,  knows  well  enough  that  the  place  is 
not  what  it  ought  long  since  to  have  been.  P.  281.  Forrest  quoted  Jefferson  and 
Madison  upon  the  future  of  Norfolk.  P.  296,  297. 


97]  PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE  97 

necessity  of  resorting  to  Charleston  and  Norfolk  because  of  the 
want  of  a  good  port  in  their  own  state,  and  there  was  discussion 
of  the  possibility  of  making  Wilmington  a  great  Southern  empor- 
ium. Charleston  and  Savannah  were  the  only  ports  of  any  conse- 
quence upon  a  long  stretch  of  coast  line,  and  were  rivals  for  the 
trade  of  several  states.  In  the  fifties  Charleston  was  in  many  re- 
spects the  most  progressive  city  in  the  South.13  With  the  excep- 
tion of  New  Orleans,  she  had  more  citizens  of  wealth  and  better 
banking  facilities  than  any  other  city  south  of  Baltimore.  Many 
of  her  merchants  were  natives  or  residents  of  long  standing,  and 
were  imbued  with  a  high  degree  of  public  spirit.  Her  chamber  of 
commerce  was  aggressive  and  resourceful.  On  the  other  hand, 
Savannah,  while  she  had  all  the  drawbacks  of  Southern  cities  in 
general,  possessed  certain  advantages  of  location  from  which 
much  was  hoped.  She  was  more  advantageously  located  for  se- 
curing railroad  connection  with  the  West. 

Until  the  vast  possibilities  of  the  railroad  for  changing  the  es- 
tablished course  of  trade  were  realized,  the  citizens  of  New 
Orleans  never  doubted  that  their  city  was  destined  to  become  the 
metropolis  of  America,  situated  as  she  was  at  the  mouth  of  a 
river  which  drains  half  a  continent,  and  strategically  located  with 
reference  to  the  West  Indies,  Mexico,  South  America,  and  the 
Pacific.1*  Not  until  after  about  1850  did  the  people  of  New  Or- 
leans awaken  to  a  realization  that  the  greatness  of  the  city  could 
not  be  insured  merely  by  permitting  time  and  nature  to  take  their 
courses,  but  that  they  must  resort  to  the  methods  less  favored 
cities  employed.  Then  the  city  government  was  reformed;  radiat- 
ing railroads  were  projected,  and  their  construction  was  pushed 
vigorously.  One,  the  New  Orleans,  Jackson,  and  Great  Northern 
aimed  at  the  Ohio;  the  other,  the  Opelousas  and  Western,  pointed 
toward  the  west  and  was  intended  to  be  the  first  span  of  a  road  to 
the  Pacific.  Great  interest  was  taken  in  projects  to  establish  com- 
munication with  the  Pacific  by  way  of  the  Isthmus  of  Tehuan- 
tepec.  The  rivals  of  New  Orleans  were  not  neighboring  cities  on 

13Cf.  Cordoza,  J.  N.,  Reminiscences  of  Charleston,  1 866;  Trenholm,  W.  L., 
The  Centennial  Address  before  the  Charleston  Chamber  of  Commerce,  llth 
Feb.,  1884. 

"Cf.  Cable,  Geo.  W.,  History  and  Present  Condition  of  New  Orleans,  Tenth 
Census,  XIX,  Pt.  II,  213-95. 


98        ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1       [98 

the  Gulf,  although  citizens  of  Mobile  regarded  her  as  one,  but 
cities  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard  which  were  being  connected  with 
the  Mississippi  valley  by  railroads  and  inland  waterways. 

Mobile  was  the  only  other  Gulf  port  of  any  consequence;  her 
ambitions  far  exceeded  her  legitimate  expectations.  John  Forsyth 
told  of  the  aspirations  and  the  sad  deficiencies  of  Mobile  in  the 
same  breath:  "Mobile  is  but  a  chrysalis  of  commerce  ....  She 
stands  trembling  at  the  portals  of  a  grand  destiny  which  she  has 
not  the  courage  to  enter,  and  paralyzed  by  the  coward  fear  that 
the  splendid  columns  and  gilded  domes,  the  sapphire  pavements 
and  rubied  windows  of  the  temple  of  commercial  grandeur,  are 
not  for  her  enjoyment  and  realization."15  This,  of  a  town  of  about 
25,000  inhabitants. 

It  was,  then,  from  chambers  of  commerce,  boards  of  trade, 
merchants,  editors,  and  public  spirited  citizens  and  officials  of 
Southern  seaports  that  projects  for  establishing  direct  trade  re- 
ceived much,  if  not  most,  of  their  support.  But  the  achievement 
of  commercial  independence  was  represented  not  merely  as  a 
measure  which  would  promote  the  prosperity  of  individual  sea- 
ports, but  also  as  one  which  would  greatly  benefit  the  South  as  a 
whole;  the  interest  in  it  was  not  confined  to  the  seaports  but  was 
general  throughout  the  South. 

The  more  general  reasons  why  the  loyal  and  progressive  South- 
erners were  very  desirous  of  promoting  the  material  development 
of  the  section  have  been  given  in  connection  with  the  account  of 
the  movement  to  bring  the  spindles  to  the  cotton.16  It  was  galling 
to  their  pride  that  their  section  should  be  languishing  and  depen- 
dent. They  wanted  a  denser  population,  cities,  towns,  railroads, 
development  of  natural  resources,  and  the  social  benefits  which 
they  believed  would  follow  material  development.  They  wished 
to  prove  by  the  actual  accomplishment  that,  contrary  to  the  con- 
tentions of  its  Northern  and  British  antagonists,  cities,  commerce, 
manufactures,  and  the  "arts  of  living"  could  flourish  in  a  slave 
society.  And,  more  important,  they  felt  that  the  security  of  slav- 
ery could  no  longer  be  safely  entrusted  to  constitutional  guaran- 
tees and  adroit  political  combinations,  but  that  these  must  be  sup- 
ported by  the  power  of  wealth,  numbers,  and  economic  independ- 

"Lecture  on  "The  North  and  the  South,"  DfBow's  Review,  XVII,  377. 
"See  ch.  II. 


99]  PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE  99 

ence.  If,  as  was  possible,  the  Union  should  be  dissolved,  these 
things  would  be  essential  to  national  existence. 

Now  direct  trade  and  the  retention  at  home  of  the  "tribute"  the 
South  paid  New  York  were  expected  to  supply  the  capital  which 
would  build  cities,  give  a  stimulus  to  manufactures,  mining,  and 
agriculture,  make  possible  stronger  financial  institutions,  help 
finance  railroads  and  other  internal  improvements,  and,  by  conse- 
quence, invite  immigration  and,  thus,  redress  the  political  pre- 
ponderance of  the  non-slaveholding  states.  According  to  the  re- 
port of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  of  the  Alabama  Legis- 
lature, "As  the  proper  adjustment  of  our  foreign  and  domestic 
trade,  on  the  principle  of  economy  laid  down,  involves  the  value  of 
city,  town,  and  county  property,  agricultural  and  manufacturing 
prosperity,  the  profits  on  bank,  railroad,  and  canal  stocks,  as  well 
as  population  and  political  power,  it  becomes  one  of  the  highest 
considerations  to  all  classes."17 

Furthermore,  there  were  several  evils  in  the  Southern  economic 
and  social  system  for  which  it  was  believed  the  establishment  of 
direct  trade  with  Europe  would  be  a  specific  remedy.  One  of 
these  was  the  absence  of  a  permanent  mercantile  class  whose  in- 
terests were  identified  with  those  of  the  South  at  large  both 
financially  and  politically.  The  merchants  of  most  Southern 
towns,  interior  as  well  as  seaport,  were  largely  Northern  men  or 
foreigners  who  looked  upon  their  abode  in  the  South  as  tempor- 
ary. James  Stirling  said  two-thirds  or  three-fourths  of  the  com- 
mercial business  was  carried  on  by  Northern  men  or  foreigners.18 
Most  of  the  cotton  buyers  and  commission  merchants  were  non- 
residents; the  South  was  literally  overrun  by  agents  and  collectors 
of  Northern  mercantile  houses.  "The  merchants  of  the  South,  like 
the  nobility  of  Ireland,"  wrote  Lieutenant  Maury,  "are,  for  the 
most  part,  non-residents.  At  the  season  when  the  Southern  staples 
are  coming  to  market,  these  flock  there  from  all  quarters.  When 
the  crop  is  disposed  of,  they  return  whence  they  came,  with  their 
gains  in  their  pockets,  and,  thus,  a  continued  drain  is  kept  upon 
that  country."19 

No  city  suffered  more  in  this  respect  than  New  Orleans.  The 
wealthy  Creoles  owned  the  real  estate  and  lived  upon  its  rental. 

"DfBotv's  Review,  XIV,  441. 

"Letters  from  the  Slave  States,  320. 
"So.  Lit.  Mess.,  XI,  588. 


IOO     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1    [lOO 

They  were  extremely  conservative,  desired  to  keep  down  taxes, 
and  opposed  new  enterprises.  The  men  who  directed  commerce 
were  strangers,  who  had  no  permanent  stake  in  the  city  but  pre- 
ferred temporary  gains  to  the  future  growth  of  the  port.  Their 
earnings  were  expended  or  invested  chiefly  in  the  North.20  The 
busy  season  of  New  Orleans  extended  from  October  or  November 
to  the  following  spring.  During  this  period  thousands  of  laborers, 
attracted  by  high  wages,  flocked  to  the  city  from  the  Northern 
states  to  return  thence  when  the  busy  season  closed.  An  English 
observer  estimated  that  of  the  population  from  November  to  May 
fully  a  fourth  part  was  migratory.21 

Practically  the  whole  business  of  Mobile,  Alabama — commerce, 
banking,  the  few  manufactures — was  in  the  hands  of  Northern 
men.  Savannah,  Georgia,  had  a  large  Northern  and  foreign  ele- 
ment; Augusta  was  known  as  a  Yankee  town — the  Yankee  ele- 
ment was  not  transient  in  this  case.  Charleston  suffered  less  from 
transients  and  temporary  residents  than  any  other  Southern  city 
or  town.  Virginia  towns,  in  general,  had  a  more  permanent  and 
more  Southern  population  than  those  of  the  cotton  states. 

The  want,  in  so  many  Southern  towns  of  a  permanent  mercan- 
tile class  thoroughly  identified  with  the  interests  of  the  section  de- 
prived the  South  of  a  class  which,  in  every  community,  has  much 
to  do  with  the  undertaking  of  new  enterprises.  It  was  largely  re- 
sponsible, too,  for  the  small  part  cities  played  in  determining  state 
legislative  policies.  Then,  thorough  Southerners  desired  to  be  rid 
of  the  swarms  of  Northern  agents,  temporary  residents,  and  mi- 
gratory population,  because  they  were  felt  to  be  unfriendly  to 
slavery.  Their  presence,  it  was  felt,  would  divide  and  distract 
Southern  counsels.  Their  influence  upon  native  non-si aveholding 
whites  was  feared. 

Another  feature  of  the  economic  system  of  the  South  which  was 
greatly  deplored,  and  which  it  was  believed  direct  trade  with 
Europe  would  go  far  toward  remedying,  was  financial  dependence 
upon  the  East,  particularly  New  York  City.  This  was  coming  to 
be  considered  a  great  evil  at  the  time  of  the  early  direct  trade 

xDeBow's  Review,  XI,  77  ff.,  quoting  a  speech  of  James  Robb  in  a  Louis- 
iana railroad  convention,  1851. 

ajames  Robertson,  A  Few  Months  in  America,  66.  Cf.  Robert  Russell, 
North  America,  253.  During  the  last  decade  before  the  war,  however,  conditions 
in  New  Orleans  were  considerably  improved  in  this  respect. 


IOI]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE          IOI 

conventions;  it  was  a  matter  of  greater  concern  in  the  18505.  The 
immense  commerce  of  New  York  was  believed  responsible  for  the 
centralization  there  of  so  much  of  the  financial  power  and  oper- 
ations of  the  country.  If  direct  trade  could  be  established,  the 
importers'  profits  saved,  and  commercial  centers  built  up,  the 
banking  institutions  of  the  South  would  be  strengthened,  and  thus 
enabled  to  meet  the  financial  requirements  of  the  section.22 

The  Southern  people  were  largely  dependent  upon  New  York 
City  for  the  financing  of  the  marketing  of  their  crops.  Every  fall 
when  Southern  staples  began  to  move,  planters  and  shippers  made 
great  demands  for  cash  and  credit.  Southern  banks  made  such 
loans  as  their  facilities  would  permit,  and  in  the  case  of  New  Or- 
leans and  Charleston  they  were  by  no  means  small;  but  the  chief 
burden  fell  upon  New  York. 

To  make  this  clear  it  is  necessary  to  review  briefly  the  manner 
in  which  Southern  crops,  particularly  cotton,  were  marketed.  Vir- 
ginia products  (chiefly  tobacco  and  grain)  consumed  outside  the 
state  were  sold  mostly  in  New  York,  even  when  destined  to  be 
exported  to  Europe.  Of  direct  exports  a  large  portion  was  bought 
and  shipped  by  New  York  men.23  Part  of  the  cotton  was  sold 
in  the  ports  to  speculators  and  others,  many  of  whom  were  New 
Yorkers.  The  remainder,  and  perhaps  the  larger  part,  was  sold 
in  the  North  or  in  England  through  factors  and  commission  mer- 
chants representing  New  York  or  Liverpool  houses.  The  planters 
or  merchants  received  advances  upon,  or  payment  for,  their  cot- 
ton chiefly  in  the  form  of  sixty-day  sterling  bills  or  four-months 
New  York  drafts.  These  bills  and  drafts  were  discounted  by 
Southern  banks  and  forwarded  to  New  York,  where  they  went  to 
pay  the  debts  of  Southern  merchants  and  others  or  to  secure  cash 
with  which  to  purchase  the  other  bills  which  came  flooding  in  as 
the  staples  went  forward.  Sterling  bills  were  bought  in  New  York, 
of  course,  because  there  came  the  larger  proportion  of  the  imports 
and  there  normally  was  the  demand  for  bills.  Exchange  was  fre- 

"DeBow's  Review,  XIV,  441;  remarks  of  Mr.  Wheeler  in  the  Virginia  House 
of  Delegates,  Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  10,  1852;  D.  M.  Barringer,  of  N.  C.,  in 
the  Old  Point  direct  trade  convention,  ibid.,  Aug.  3;  H.  C.  Cabell,  of  Virginia, 
Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XLII,  323. 

23i'Letter  of  a  Southern  man  to  Governor  Wise  of  Virginia,"  Richmond  En- 
quirer, Jan.  9,  1856;  editorial,  ibid.,  Dec.  17,  1852. 


IO2     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1    [lO2 

quently  in  favor  of  the  South  (especially  was  this  true  in  the  case 
of  New  Orleans),  and  at  such  times  great  sums  of  specie  flowed 
South  to  find  their  way  back  to  the  North  during  the  dull  seasons 
of  the  year.24 

It  is  evident  that  the  moving  of  the  cotton  crop  and,  in  a  large 
measure,  the  price  the  planter  received,  depended  upon  the  ability 
and  willingness  of  New  York  to  buy  New  York  drafts  and  sterling 
bills.  This  was  strikingly  proven  at  the  time  of  the  financial  crisis 
of  1857.  The  effect  of  the  crash  can  best  be  studied  at  New  Or- 
leans, the  greatest  cotton  exporting  port  in  America.  The  crop  of 
1857  was  short,  and  the  price  was  expected  to  be  high.  Factors, 
finding  money  easy,  "put  out  their  acceptances"  with  a  liberal 
hand,  expecting  the  crop  coming  in  to  meet  all  engagements.  Cot- 
ton went  on  the  market  at  16^/2  cents,  with  sterling  selling  at 
ioo,}4  to  109^.  On  September  25  word  came  from  New  York 
that  exchange  was  almost  unsaleable.  Money  became  tighter  and 
tighter;  sterling  fell  to  92^2-97;  and  presently  banks  refused  to 
take  it  at  any  price.  Cotton  buyers  withdrew  from  the  market.  A 
large  portion  of  the  cotton  crop  sold  for  several  cents  less  than 
the  promised  price.25 

The  crash  brought  the  evils  of  financial  dependence  home  to 
the  South  as  they  had  never  been  brought  before.  Southern  journ- 
als and  writers  pointed  out  that  the  South  had  not  been  respon- 
sible for  the  panic.  There  had  been  no  speculation  in  the  South, 
they  said.  True,  she  had  embarked  largely  upon  railroad  build- 
ing, but  because  of  the  scarcity  of  capital  the  building  had  been 
sanely  and  economically  done.  The  South  was  in  a  position  to 
enter  upon  a  flood-tide  of  prosperity,  "And  yet — and  yet — almost 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  with  the  suddenness  of  an  earthquake, 
and  unexpectedly  as  a  stroke  of  lightning  from  a  cloudless  sky, 
cotton  was  struck  down,  and  became  almost  unsalable  in  the 

"Kettell,  Southern  Wealth  and  Northern  Profits,  ch.  VII;  Hunt's  Merchants' 
Magazine,  XXIX,  60;  XLII,  318;  report  of  a  committee  of  the  Cotton  Planters' 
Convention,  Macon,  1858,  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXV,  713  f.;  Stone,  A.  H.,  "The 
Cotton  Factorage  System  of  the  Southern  States,"  Amer.  Hist.  Rev.,  XX,  557-65. 

"New  Orleans  Daily  Picayune,  June  I,  1858;  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine, 
XLII,  315,  from  "Banking  at  the  South  with  Reference  to  New  York  City,"  by 
H.  C.  Cabell,  of  Virginia. 

^Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XLII,  315. 


IO3]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE          IO3 

Southern  market."26  The  South  lost  millions  of  dollars  ($35,000,- 
ooo,  said  Senator  J.  H.  Hammond  in  his  "Mud  Sill"  speech)27 
upon  the  crop  of  the  year  1857-1858. 

The  New  Orleans  Picayune  pointed  out  the  anomaly  of  the 
greatest  exporting  port  in  America  being  "stranded  because  of  a 
money  panic  in  Wall  Street" — cotton  selling  at  10  cents  a  pound 
while  it  was  1 8  or  19  in  London.28  The  moral  was  drawn  that, 
had  the  South  direct  trade,  there  would  have  been  a  demand  at 
home  for  sterling  bills,  and  cotton  could  have  gone  forward  with- 
out waiting  for  the  recovery  of  New  York.  The  Picayune  dared 
hope  that  the  disturbance  caused  by  the  panic  might  result  in  di- 
rect trade  for  the  South:  "The  power  on  which  we  have  been  de- 
pendent so  long  has  at  length  given  way,  and  almost  without 
knowing  it,  we  have  come  or  are  about  to  come,  actually  to  realize 
in  practice  what  has  hitherto  been  considered  by  many  an  idle 
dream — direct  trade  with  Europe.  And  should  this  step  .... 
result  in  our  permanent  emancipation  from  a  system  whose  ad- 
vantages are  far  outnumbered  by  their  disadvantages — a  system 
which  wrings  from  us  annually,  without  any  return  except  the  loss 
of  influence  and  of  power,  millions  of  hard  earned  dollars — we 
should  think  the  financial  crisis,  with  all  its  manifold  evils,  cheap 
to  us."29 

The  immense  loss  occasioned  the  South  by  the  crash  of  Septem- 
ber, 1857,  was  but  a  striking  example  of  the  evils  of  the  centraliza- 
tion of  commerce  and  finance  in  New  York.  The  cotton  states,  as 
did  the  West  for  that  matter,  experienced  to  a  less  degree  the  evils 
of  centralization  every  fall  when  the  crops  were  moved.  During 
the  idle  months  funds  found  their  way  to  New  York,  there  to  be 
used  in  business  or  speculation.  When  the  crops  of  the  South  and 
West  began  to  move,  there  was  a  tightness  in  the  money  market, 
which  operated  to  depress  prices.30  And  this  did  not  signify,  as 
some  planters  asserted,  that  New  York  financial  interests  were 

"Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  961. 
""Quoted  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  656  f. 

^This  is  a  very  moderate  statement.    For  a  less  temperate  one  see  Ibid., 
XXIII,  657-9,  quoting  the  Vicksburg  True  Southron. 

•"Kettell,  Southern  Wealth  and  Northern  Profits,  93,  94. 


104     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [l04 

interested  in  forcing  down  the  price  of  cotton.31  It  was  far  pre- 
ferable to  be  dependent  upon  the  money  power  of  New  York  than 
upon  the  money  power  of  London;  for  normally  New  York  was 
interested  in  keeping  the  prices  up.  Since  the  Southern  staple 
constituted  the  chief  export  of  the  country,  and  there  was  a  quite 
steady  demand  for  it  in  the  world's  markets,  it  became  the  basis 
for  securing  credit  in  Europe.  The  cotton  crop  was  at  once  an  in- 
dex to  Northern  manufacturers  and  merchants  of  the  South's  abil- 
ity to  buy  in  the  home  markets  and  of  the  nation's  ability  to  pur- 
chase abroad.  The  solicitude  with  which  the  business  interests  of 
New  York,  especially  in  time  of  depression,  looked  forward  to  the 
moving  of  cotton  and  speculated  as  to  the  crop  and  the  price  it 
would  bring,  abundantly  testifies  to  the  role  cotton  played  in  keep- 
ing the  wheels  of  credit  in  motion.  At  the  time  of  the  crisis  of 
1857,  New  York  financial  circles  considered  it  essential  to  revival 
that  cotton  continue  to  move,  whatever  the  price,  and  hoped  the 
planters  would  be  willing  to  let  it  go  forward  at  the  low  prices 
shippers  could  afford  to  offer.32 

The  cotton  planters  were  not  the  only  ones  who  suffered  from 
the  financial  dependence  of  the  South  upon  the  North.  All  who 
sought  to  embark  in  business,  to  start  manufactures,  to  develop 
the  mineral  resources  of  the  country,  found  themselves  handi- 
capped by  their  inability  to  secure  proper  financial  support  at 
home.  Most  of  the  railroad  bonds,  for  example,  had  to  be  sold 
either  in  New  York  or  other  Northern  cities  or  abroad.  No  won- 

MMr.  Wheeler  of  Portsmouth  said  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates,  Dec. 
2,  1852:  ". . .  the  price,  the  worth,  the  market  value  of  all  we  and  the  people  we 
represent  own  of  every  kind  of  property,  is  dependent  upon  the  speculative 
pleasure  of  the  Merchants,  the  Bankers,  and  Brokers  of  New  York.  And  why? 
Because  Wall  Street  can  depress  the  money  market  when  it  pleases."  Richmond 
Enquirer,  Dec.  7,  1852.  See  also  A.  Dudley  Mann,  DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  373. 

^Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXXVII,  583.  Some  of  the  cotton  had  not 
been  advanced  upon,  and  the  planters  were  able  to  hold  it;  but  much  of  the 
cotton  did  go  forward.  The  importance  of  its  movement  to  Northern  business 
was  not  overlooked  in  the  South.  "What  saved  you?"  asked  Senator  Hammond. 
"Fortunately  for  you  it  was  the  commencement  of  the  cotton  season,  and  we 
have  poured  in  upon  you  one  million  six  hundred  thousand  bales  of  cotton  just 
at  the  crisis  to  save  you  from  sinking.  That  cotton,  but  for  the  bursting  of  your 
speculative  bubbles  in  the  North  .  .  .  would  have  brought  us  $100,000,000. 
We  have  sold  it  for  $65,000,000,  and  saved  you."  Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  I 
Sess.,  961. 


105]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE          IO5 

der  the  people  of  the  Southern  states,  at  a  time  when  there  was 
almost  a  mania  for  railroad  building,  when  they  were  becoming 
aware  of  the  existence  of  considerable  mineral  resources  and  the 
possession  of  great  advantages  for  certain  lines  of  manufactures, 
should  chafe  at,  and  try  to  be  free  from,  the  necessity  of  waiting 
for  the  favor  of  distant  money  markets  before  entering  upon  a 
career  of  expansion.  Said  a  correspondent  of  the  Charleston 
Courier,  1854:  "At  present  our  principal  sources  for  obtaining 
funds  are  through  the  capitalists  of  the  North  and  Europe.  So 
long  as  we  are  thus  dependent,  so  long  may  we  expect  to  be  used 
for  their  benefit,  and  be  made  subservient  to  their  interests.  When 
they  cannot  find  better  investment  they  will  advance  to  us  freely, 
and  leave  us  when  they  can  find  others  more  profitable."33 

A  good  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  attempts  to  inaugurate 
new  enterprises  in  the  South  were  handicapped  by  the  financial 
deficiencies  of  the  section  is  found  in  the  efforts  which  were  made 
to  establish  direct  trade  with  Europe;  for  commercial  vassalage 
was  effect  as  well  as  cause  of  financial  vassalage.  Just  as  they 
had  done  in  the  thirties,  retail  merchants  in  the  South  bought  of 
Northern  jobbers  on  long  credit — often  twelve  months.  To  com- 
pete with  the  Northern  jobbers,  Southern  importers  and  jobbers 
would  also  have  to  extend  the  long  credits.  But  while  the  North- 
ern jobbers  could  procure  funds  upon  their  long  time  paper,  the 
Southern  importers  found  it  difficult  or  impossible  to  discount  long 
time  paper  in  Southern  banks. 

The  reference  to  long  credits  raises  the  question  whether  after 
all,  had  it  not  been  for  this  pernicious  system,  the  credit  facilities 
of  the  South  might  not  have  been  sufficient  to  permit  the  launch- 
ing of  many  more  new  enterprises  than  were  actually  launched. 
The  New  Orleans  Commercial  Bulletin  enumerated  the  greater 
facilities  of  the  merchants  of  Northern  cities  for  the  extension  of 
long  credits  as  one  of  the  reasons  why  New  Orleans  had  lost  much 
trade  in  the  South  and  West:  "The  twelve  months  credit  system 
did  the  business,  and  attracted  an  immense  amount  of  Western  and 
Southwestern  trade  to  those  cities,  which  would  have  otherwise 
sought  this  port."34  In  the  opinion  of  the  Mobile  Tribune  the 
South  was  bound  to  the  North  by  long  credits:  destroy  that  sys- 

"April  7,  1854. 

"Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXXIII,  263. 


IO6     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [lo6 

tern  and  there  might  be  some  chance  for  direct  trade.35  In  fact, 
just  as  in  the  period  of  the  early  direct  trade  conventions,  the  long 
credits  system  was  frequently  denounced  and  deplored,  and  the 
people  were  frequently  urged  to  free  themselves  from  it.  Yet,  it 
must  be  said,  the  people  of  the  Southern  states  took  long  credits 
too  much  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  did  not  adequately  realize 
their  viciousness.  There  was  almost  no  other  factor  that  operated 
so  effectively  to  retard  the  accumulation  of  capital  in  the  South. 
The  Southern  people  paid  for  these  long  advances  and  paid 
dearly.  They  paid  in  interest.  They  paid  in  increased  prices  of 
articles  consumed;  for,  because  of  the  precarious  nature  of  much 
of  the  Southern  trade,  risks  were  great,  and  Northern  merchants 
insured  themselves  well  against  such  risks.  They  paid,  often,  in 
the  sacrifice  in  the  prices  of  their  staples  incurred  because  of  forced 
sales  necessary  to  procure  money  to  meet  their  obligations  at  ma- 
turity. J.  L.  Crocheran,  of  Alabama,  said  the  South  put  herself 
at  the  mercy  of  speculators  by  forcing  one-third  of  her  cotton 
into  the  market  in  two  months  in  order  to  pay  advances  received 
during  twelve.36 

The  financial  dependence  of  the  Southern  states  was  not  credit- 
ed only  to  the  absence  of  foreign  commerce,  cities,  accumulated 
capital,  and  varied  industries;  there  was  considerable  dissatis- 
faction with  the  banking  system.  It  was  thought  by  some  that 
the  banking  laws  were  too  conservative  in  several  of  the  states. 
The  policies  of  the  banks  were  criticized  on  the  score  that  they 
contributed  to  the  centralization  at  New  York.37  Representatives  of 
the  mercantile  interests  complained  that  banks  were  partial  to  the 
agricultural  interests.  It  would  take  us  too  far  from  the  subject 
of  this  chapter  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  bank  laws  and 
banking  operations  in  the  several  states.  It  would  seem  that  in 

^Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXXIII,  264.  The  dissatisfaction  with  the 
long  credits  system  was  not  entirely  confined  to  the  South.  Some  New  York 
men  felt  that  the  Southern  trade  was  hardly  worth  the  risks  involved.  Ibid., 
XXXIV,  522,  article,  "Some  Suggestions  on  Southern  Trade." 

"DeBotv's  Review,  XXV,  40. 

'7Cabell,  H.  C.,  "Banking  in  the  South  with  Reference  to  New  York  City," 
Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XLII,  311-323;  letters  of  "A  Southern  Man"  to 
Gov.  Wise  of  Virginia,  Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan.  9,  u,  Feb.  II,  1856;  Gregg, 
William,  DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  495;  Kettell,  Southern  Wealth  and  Northern 
Profits,  ch.  VII;  Fitzhugh,  Sociology  for  the  South,  chs.  IX,  X. 


. 


IO7]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE          107 

three  states,  Louisiana,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  banking 
facilities  were  as  adequate  as  the  volume  of  business  done  would 
justify;  there,  too,  the  bankers  pursued  enlightened  policies.38 
There  was  undoubtedly  great  improvement  in  banking  conditions 
during  the  fifties. 

There  were  difficulties  to  be  overcome  before  direct  importa- 
tions could  be  established  other  than  deficiency  of  capital  and 
credit,  the  long  credit  system,  or  the  absence  of  a  thoroughly 
Southern  mercantile  class.  One  lay  in  the  comparatively  small 
amounts  of  foreign  goods  consumed  in  the  South.  There  is  no 
way  of  calculating  accurately  the  value  of  the  foreign  imports 
consumed  in  territory  naturally  tributary  to  Southern  seaports; 
but  the  probabilities  are  that  it  did  not  so  greatly  exceed  the 
direct  importations  as  Southerners  generally  supposed.  Some 
Southern  writers  made  the  palpably  untenable  assumption  that 
the  Southern  population  consumed  foreign  goods  equal  in  value  to 
their  exports  to  foreign  countries,  that  is  about  two-thirds  or 
three-fourths  of  the  nation's  exports,  or  imports.39  More  reason- 
able was  the  assumption  that  the  per  capita  consumption  of  im- 
ported goods  in  the  South  was  equal  to  that  of  the  North;40  but 
even  that  would  seem  to  have  been  too  liberal.  A  much  higher 
percentage  of  the  Northern  population  was  urban;  and  the  per 
capita  consumption  of  articles  of  commerce  by  an  urban  popula- 
tion is  greater  than  the  per  capita  consumption  by  a  rural  popula- 
tion. Southern  writers  made  much  of  the  number  of  rich  families 
in  the  South  who  bought  articles  of  luxury  imported  from  abroad; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  number  of  families  who  lived  in 
luxury  was  exaggerated.  That  the  slaves  consumed  comparative- 
ly small  quantities  of  foreign  goods  requires  no  demonstration. 
Their  clothing  and  rough  shoes  were  manufactured  either  in  the 
North  or  at  home.  Their  chief  articles  of  food  (corn  and  bacon) 
were  produced  at  home  or  in  the  West.  The  large  poor  white 
element  in  the  population  consumed  few  articles  of  commerce, 

MCordoza,  J.  N.,  Reminiscences  of  Charleston,  44  ff.;  Trenholm,  W.  L.,  The 
Centennial  Address  before  the  Charleston  Chamber  of  Commerce,  31  ff.;  Gregg, 
William,  Speech  ...  on  a  Bill  to  Amend  an  Act  entitled  'An  Act  to  authorize 
aid  to  the  Blue  Ridge  Railroad  Company'  ....  Dec.  8,  1856,  p.  29. 

"For  example,  M.  R.  H.  Garnett,  The  Union,  Past  and  Present,  How  It 
Works  and  How  to  Save  It.  Cf.  DeBow's  Review,  XVIII,  294  ff. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  April  23,  1852,  letter  signed  "Self  Dependence." 


IO8      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [lo8 

either  domestic  or  foreign.  The  same  is  true  of  the  rather  large 
mountaineer  element,  because,  if  for  no  other  reason,  they  lived 
beyond  the  routes  of  trade.  Olmsted  had  these  classes  in  mind 
when  he  wrote:  "I  have  never  seen  reason  to  believe  that  with 
absolute  free  trade  the  cotton  States  would  take  a  tenth  part  of 
the  value  of  our  present  importations."41  One  of  the  fairest  of  the 
many  English  travelers  wrote:  "But  the  truth  is,  there  are  few 
imports  required,  for  every  Southern  town  tells  the  same  tale."*2 
That  portion  of  the  proceeds  of  Southern  exports  to  foreign 
countries  which  was  not  expended  for  foreign  imports  was  ex- 
pended for  the  products  of  the  North  and  West.  The  sales  from 
the  South  into  other  sections  of  the  Union  were  sufficient  to  pay 
for  only  a  fraction  of  the  commodities  purchased  there  for  South- 
ern consumption.  The  value  of  the  cotton  exported  was  greater  by 
far  than  the  value  of  all  other  Southern  exports  combined;  yet  in 
a  normal  year  less  than  one-fourth  of  the  cotton  went  to  the 
North.43  The  exports  to  the  North  and  West  of  sugar  and  mo- 
lasses, tobacco,  rice,  grain  and  flour,  timber,  turpentine,  and  naval 
stores  were  considerably  larger  in  proportion  to  the  exports  of  the 
same  commodities  to  foreign  markets;  but  hardly  large  enough  in 
the  aggregate  to  pay  for  the  imports  from  those  sections.44  J.  H. 
Hammond  estimated  that  in  1857  the  South  sold  products  abroad 
to  the  value  of  $185,000,000,  and  to  the  North  and  West  to  the 
value  of  $35,ooo,ooo.45  The  latter  sum  is  undoubtedly  too  small; 
but  a  liberal  estimate  could  not  place  the  value  of  the  exports  to 

"Cotton  Kingdom,  I,  27. 

^Robert  Russell,  North  America,  290. 

**Donnell,  History  of  Cotton,  passim.  In  the  year  1854,  for  example,  737,000 
bales  of  cotton  were  shipped  North  as  against  2,528,000  exported  to  Europe. 

"According  to  the  estimate  of  the  New  Orleans  Price  Current,  in  the  year 
1858-1859  four-fifths  of  the  sugar  and  three-fourths  of  the  molasses  exported  coast- 
wise from  New  Orleans  went  to  Baltimore  and  points  north.  DeBow's  Review, 
XXVII,  477.  Sugar  and  molasses  were  also  sent  up  the  Mississippi  in  large 
quantities.  The  exports  of  these  commodities  to  foreign  countries  were  not  large. 
Of  the  tobacco  exported  from  New  Orleans  about  three-fourths  went  to  foreign 
countries.  Ibid.,  X,  448.  No  other  Southern  products  were  exported  from 
New  Orleans  in  large  quantities. 

"Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  961.  The  value  of  the  cotton  alone  shipped 
North  in  1857-1858  was  about  $32,000,000.  Hammond,  Cotton  Industry,  table  op- 
posite p.  358.  Because  of  the  panic  of  1857,  the  consumption  of  cotton  was 
less  than  normal. 


IO9]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE          109 

the  North  and  West  at  much  more  than  50  per  cent  of  the  value  of 
the  exports  to  foreign  countries.  On  the  other  hand,  there  was 
almost  universal  testimony  that  Southern  purchases  of  Northern 
and  Western  commodities  greatly  exceeded  in  value  the  direct  and 
indirect  imports  from  abroad.  Most  of  the  big  items  of  Southern 
consumption  were  furnished  almost  entirely  by  the  North  or 
West.  Practically  all  of  the  boots  and  shoes  came  from  Massa- 
chusetts; coarse  cottons  came  from  New  England;  the  agricultur- 
al implements  not  manufactured  at  home  came  from  the  North 
and  West,  as  did  harness  and  saddles,  carriages  and  coaches, 
wagons,  locomotives,  and  railroad  cars,  engines,  furniture,  and 
numerous  other  articles.  Great  quantities  of  bacon,  pork,  lard, 
and  corn  were  shipped  from  the  Northwest  down  the  Mississippi 
to  be  consumed  in  the  cotton  states.  The  cotton  states  also 
bought  large  numbers  of  mules,  horses,  and  cattle  in  Kentucky 
and  Missouri,  states  which  in  the  fifties  received  practically  none 
of  their  imports,  Northern  or  foreign,  by  way  of  Southern 
ports.40  In  1839  a  committee  of  the  Charleston  Direct  Trade 
Convention  had  found  that  one-third  of  the  goods  consumed  in 
the  South  were  of  Northern  production;47  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
later  no  one  estimated  the  value  of  the  foreign  goods  at  more  than 
one-half  that  of  the  goods  of  Northern  and  Western  production. 
Daniel  Lord,  a  Northern  writer,  said  the  South  imported  from  the 
North  ten  dollars  in  domestic  productions  for  every  one  imported 
directly  or  indirectly  from  Europe.48 

The  ability  of  the  Southern  people  to  purchase  their  proportion- 
ate share  of  the  nation's  imports  was  further  diminished,  of  course, 
by  the  payment  of  those  freights,  profits,  interests,  commissions, 
charges,  and  expenses  which  went  to  Northern  men,  and  which 
the  advocates  of  a  direct  course  of  trade  were  so  anxious  to  save. 
Thus  the  very  commercial  dependence  under  which  the  South 

^St.  Louis  was  the  distributing  center  for  Missouri  and  parts  of  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee.  Cincinnati  and  Louisville  were  distributing  centers  for  Kentucky 
and  parts  of  Tennessee.  In  the  fifties  these  cities  received  practically  all  of  their 
foreign  and  Northern  goods  from  the  East  by  interior  routes.  Western  Virginia 
traded  with  Cincinnati  and  Baltimore.  Baltimore  was  rarely  classified  as  a 
Southern  city  by  men  from  farther  south. 

"DeBow's  Review,  IV,  495. 

"Lord,  Daniel,  The  Effect  of  Secession  upon  the  North  and  the  South 
(pamphlet,  1860),  p.  15. 


IIO     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [lIO 

chafed  was  one  of  the  causes  for  the  want  of  demand  which  made 
the  establishment  of  a  more  rational  system  difficult.  There  was 
logic  in  the  contention  of  the  advocates  of  direct  trade  that,  could 
it  once  be  inaugurated,  the  saving  effected  would  increase  the 
South's  ability  to  buy,  and  the  increased  demand  would  in  turn 
help  to  firmly  esablish  the  system. 

The  meagre  demand  for  imported  goods  rendered  it  necessary 
for  Southern  importers  to  keep  assorted  stocks  and  for  long  per- 
iods. In  the  North,  on  the  contrary,  the  demand  was  large 
enough  to  permit  importers  to  specialize,  and  sure  enough  to  en- 
able them  to  replenish  their  stocks  at  frequent  intervals.  The 
commerce  of  a  port  like  New  York  was  so  great  that  it  offered  a 
certain  market  for  any  cargo  and  certain  freights  for  any  part  of 
the  world.49  Frequently  cargoes  were  solcl  at  auction  in  New  York 
and  Philadelphia,  sometimes  at  ruinous  prices,  against  which  the 
importers  of  smaller  cities  could  not  compete.  But  whatever  the 
demand  for  imported  goods  in  the  South,  the  demand  for  North- 
ern goods  was  much  greater.  A  large  number  of  vessels  was  en- 
gaged in  the  coastwise  trade.  The  same  vessels  which  carried 
Northern  goods  to  the  South  also  carried  the  indirect  imports  of 
foreign  goods.  Often  Southern  merchants  went  to  Baltimore,  Phil- 
adelphia, or  New  York  to  lay  in  their  stocks  of  Northern  goods, 
and  while  there  could  buy  merchandise  of  foreign  origin  as  well.50 
"Almost  every  country  merchant  who  visits  Charleston  has  a 
through  ticket  for  New  York  in  his  pocket,"  wrote  William 
Gregg." 

The  question  may  occur,  Why  did  not  Southern  seaports  thrive 
as  distributing  centers  for  the  coastwise  commerce?  The  explan- 
ation lies  in  part  in  the  fact  just  alluded  to:  Many  interior  merch- 
ants purchased  of  Northern  rather  than  Southern  jobbers.  Gregg 
attributed  this  to  a  preference  of  the  people  for  goods  from  New 
York  and  to  the  hostility  of  banks  to  the  mercantile  interests — 
shown  by  their  refusal  to  extend  the  support  necessary  to  enable 
the  Southern  jobbers  to  extend  the  long  credits  which  customers 
demanded.  Charleston  jobbers  could  sell  cheaper  than  New  York 
jobbers,  he  said,  and  there  was  no  adequate  reason  why  Charles- 

*Cf.    Richmond  Whig,  Mar.  n,  1851,  editorial. 
"DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  500,  556. 
"Ibid.,  XXIX,  776. 


Ill]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE  III 

ton  should  not  become  a  distributing  center  even  without  direct 
trade.52  Whether  the  banks  did  not  support  the  mercantile  inter- 
ests because  they  would  not  or  because  they  could  not,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  Southern  jobber  and  the  importer  suffered  alike  in 
this  respect.  Another  writer  said  the  country  merchant  bought 
from  the  Northern  jobber  because  he  knew  that  the  Southern 
jobber  bought  his  stocks  in  New  York,  and  he  did  not  wish  to  pay 
two  sets  of  jobbers'  profits.53  But  there  was  a  deeper  reason  why 
the  seaports  did  not  grow  and  prosper  as  distributing  centers :  the 
quantity  of  goods  to  be  distributed  was  too  small.  The  commerce 
of  the  Southern  states  was  practically  limited  to  transporting  a 
few  staples  from  the  interior  to  the  coast  and  exporting  them,  and 
to  receiving  foreign  and  Northern  goods  at  the  seaports  and  trans- 
porting them  into  the  interior.  There  was  little  internal  com- 
merce. There  was  no  home  market  for  Southern  products.  When 
the  first  railroads  were  put  in  operation,  there  was  general  dis- 
appointment at  the  lightness  of  the  traffic  upon  them.  There 
was  little  to  carry  but  cotton,  which  is  not  a  bulky  article.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  before  the  Civil  War  there  was  hardly  an  inter- 
ior town  in  the  South  worthy  of  mention  as  a  distributing  cen- 
ter. In  general,  Southerners  attached  too  much  importance  to  ex- 
porting and  importing  as  factors  in  the  growth  of  cities.  They 
overestimated  the  part  foreign  commerce  was  playing  in  the 
progress  of  Northern  cities,  not  excepting  New  York,  and  under- 
estimated the  roles  of  domestic  commerce  and  manufactures,  in- 
cluding shipbuilding.54  Today,  of  the  eleven  cities  in  the  South 
having  over  100,000  inhabitants  each,  only  three  are  seaports,  and 
the  total  population  of  these  three  is  but  35  per  cent  of  the  total 
population  of  the  entire  number. 

Mercantile  business  in  the  South  labored  under  serious  disad- 
vantages also  from  the  great  variations,  from  year  to  year,  in  the 

**DeBow's  Review,  loc.  cit. 

"Ibid.,  XII,  300. 

B4There  were  exceptions;  see,  for  example,  a  speech  of  James  Robb,  of  New 
Orleans,  in  a  railroad  convention,  1851.  "No  city  ever  grew  great  by  commerce 
alone.  Go  back  as  far  as  they  might,  select  the  most  favorably  located  cities  in 
the  world,  and  they  would  find  their  prosperity  was  transient,  evanescent,  com- 
pared with  that  of  towns  situated  in  the  interior,  where  industry  and  labor  were 
cultivated  and  flourished "  De Bow's  Review,  XI,  78.  See  also  Hunt's  Mer- 
chants' Magazine,  XXXIV,  137,  quoting  the  New  Orleans  Commercial  Bulletin; 
DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  630,  William  Gregg. 


112      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [lI2 

ability  of  the  planters  to  buy,  resulting,  in  turn,  from  the  wide 
fluctuations  in  the  cotton  crop  and  cotton  prices.55  In  the  seaports 
it  was  rendered  precarious  by  the  frequent  visitations  of  yellow 
fever.56  The  unhealthiness  of  the  ports  was  partly  responsible  for 
absenteeism  and  the  general  stagnation  of  business  during  the 
summer  months,  when  many  merchants  went  North  or  to  the  in- 
terior. Another  reason  for  cessation  of  business  activity  in  the 
summer  was  the  fact  that  the  cotton  went  to  market  in  the  fall 
and  winter.  This  idleness  during  a  large  part  of  the  year,  to- 
gether with  the  lack  of  variety  and  stability  in  the  export  trade, 
goes  far  to  explain  why  the  South  did  not  support  a  larger  mer- 
chant marine.  During  the  cotton  season  ships  from  all  quarters 
were  impressed  into  service,  and  at  its  close  returned  to  other  em- 
ployment.57 

The  bars  in  Southern  harbors  with  the  notable  exception  of 
Norfolk  were  shallow;  and  the  fast  clipper  ships,  which  carried 
so  much  of  the  world's  commerce,  could  not  enter.  Large  vessels 
were  anchored  some  thirty  miles  below  Mobile,  and  were  loaded 
and  unloaded  by  means  of  lighters.58  A  special  type  of  vessel 
was  constructed  to  carry  cotton  from  New  Orleans.59  New  Or- 
leans citizens  were  most  persistent  in  appealing  to  Congress  for 
appropriations  for  improving  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi; 
but  the  sums  granted  were  not  a  tithe  of  the  amount  necessary. 
Elsewhere  in  the  South,  the  constitutional  scruples  of  congressmen 
prevented  them  from  demanding  the  inclusion  in  rivers  and  har- 

MNew  Orleans  Daily  Picayune,  Jan.  14,  1858. 

"Norfolk  was  scourged  by  yellow  fever  in  1853.  Two  out  of  three  of  the 
whites  died.  Burton,  H.  W.,  The  History  of  Norfolk  (1877),  p.  23.  Enterprise 
in  Norfolk  received  a  blow  from  which  it  took  several  years  to  recover.  Third 
Annual  Report  of  the  Merchants'  and  Mechanics'  Exchange  of  Norfolk,  Virginia, 
Jan.,  1860.  The  same  year  the  plague  raged  in  other  Southern  towns.  In  New 
Orleans  it  was  long  remembered  as  the  year  of  the  great  plague.  There  8215 
people  died  between  May  21  and  October  31.  A  vivid  description  is  in  De Bow's 
Review,  XV,  595-635. 

"Kennedy,  Joseph  P.,  The  Border  States,  Their  Power  and  Duty,  etc. 
(1860),  p.  25. 

"Olmsted,  Cotton  Kingdom,  I,  283;  Hamilton,  Peter  J.,  Mobile  under  Five 
Flags,  270. 

89DeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  III,  16 


113]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE  113 

bors  bills  of  items  for  the  improvement  of  Southern  harbors.60  The 
bill  of  1852  appropriated  $50,000  for  the  improvement  of  Charles- 
ton harbor.  The  appropriation  was  accepted,  but  proved  entirely 
inadequate.61  President  Pierce  vetoed  the  first  general  rivers  and 
harbors  bill  presented  to  him,  1854,  and  after  that  no  others  were 
passed  before  the  Civil  War,  largely  because  of  the  constitutional 
objections  raised  by  Southern  Democrats.  In  1854  a  convention  at 
Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  said  to  be  the  largest  convention 
which  had  been  assembled  in  the  state,  memorialized  Congress  in 
favor  of  an  appropriation  for  improving  the  bar  at  Wilmington. 
The  appropriation  was  secured  by  the  North  Carolina  delegation 
in  Congress,  William  S.  Ashe,  a  staunch  Democrat,  having  charge 
of  the  bill  in  the  House.62  In  1857  the  City  of  Charleston  under- 
took to  dredge  out  the  channel  in  the  harbor  at  her  own  expense, 
but  the  enterprise  was  soon  abandoned.63  A  year  later  Senator 
Hammond  wrote:  "Time,  I  think,  will  show  that  vessels  of  1000 
tons  are  as  profitable  as  larger  ones,  to  carry  our  trade,  and  these 
can  enter  our  ports."6* 

The  discussion  of  direct  trade  included  consideration  of  ways 
and  means  to  promote  it.  There  were  innumerable  eloquent  ap- 
peals to  the  Southern  states  and  to  Southern  cities  to  "shake  off 
their  lethargy,"  to  "rouse  themselves  from  their  slumbers,"  and  to 
emulate  the  example  of  their  Northern  "sisters."  Individuals  were 
advised  to  devote  their  time  and  their  capital  to  an  enterprise  so 
well  calculated  to  promote  the  prosperity  of  their  section.  Com- 
mercial education  was  declared  desirable,  and  a  few  professorships 
of  commerce  were  established.  Retail  merchants  and  the  people  in 
general  were  urged  to  patronize  those  merchants  of  Southern  sea- 
ports who  imported  goods  of  foreign  production  directly  from 

'"Senator  Benjamin,  of  Louisiana,  stated,  1854,  that  Virginia  had  not  ac- 
cepted a  dollar  of  the  money  voted  to  her  for  this  purpose  during  the  twenty 
years  preceding.  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  confirmed  the  statement.  Cong., 
Globe,  33  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  1201. 

"Report  of  the  Commissioners  Appointed  at  the  Last  Session  of  the  General 
Assembly  to  Inquire  into  the  Feasibility  of  Improving  the  Channels  of  the  Bar 
and  Other  Approaches  of  Charleston  Harbor.  Nov.  20,  1852,  p.  5. 

"Cong.  Globe,  33  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  1654,  ff.  Ashe  said  the  last  Legislature  had 
unanimously  instructed  the  North  Carolina  representatives  in  Congress  to  work 
for  the  appropriation. 

''Charleston  Mercury,  July  12,  1859. 

"Ibid.,  April  12,  1859. 


114     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [lI4 

abroad  in  preference  to  those  who  bought  such  goods  in  the  North. 
A  rather  strong  sentiment  developed  in  favor  of  the  imposition  by 
the  state  legislatures  of  discriminatory  taxes  upon  goods  of  foreign 
production  imported  into  the  respective  states  by  way  of  Northern 
ports.65  As  in  the  thirties,  much  was  hoped  from  the  construction 
of  railroads,  particularly  those  which  opened  new  territory  or  were 
calculated  to  attract  the  trade  of  the  Ohio  valley  to  Southern 
ports.  More  specific  were  the  many  projects  for  establishing 
steamship  lines  between  Southern  and  European  or  South  Ameri- 
can ports  and  the  attempts  to  induce  European  interests  to 
establish  steamship  lines  to  the  South. 

Before  1839  only  a  few  steamships  had  crossed  the  Atlantic.  By 
1850  the  steamship  was  rapidly  supplanting  the  sailing  vessel  in 
carrying  mails,  passengers,  and  the  lighter  sorts  of  freight.  Great 
Britain  had  embarked  upon  a  policy  of  encouraging  the  develop- 
ment of  a  steam  marine  by  granting  liberal  subsidies,  and  the 
United  States  had  followed  suit  by  making  liberal  contracts  with 
steamship  companies  for  carrying  the  mails  to  Europe  and  else- 
where.66 The  ports  selected  as  terminii  for  steamship  lines  evi- 
dently had  great  advantages  in  foreign  commerce  over  those  which 
had  to  depend  upon  sailing  vessels  alone.  There  were,  for  example, 
the  advantages  of  greater  regularity  and  saving  of  time;  and  as 
the  mails  and  passengers  sought  the  steamlines,-  it  was  natural 
that  the  importing  business  should  follow  the  same  routes.67  Need- 
less to  say  New  York  captured  the  lion's  share  of  the  steamship 
lines,  and  thereby  increased  her  hold  upon  the  nation's  commerce. 
These  facts  explain  why  so  many  of  the  plans  formed  in  the  South 
for  achieving  commercial  independence  involved  the  establish- 
ment of  lines  of  regular  steamers  between  Southern  and  foreign 
ports. 

In  no  state  were  more  schemes  for  rehabilitation  discussed  than 
in  Virginia.  For  several  years  prior  to  1850  internal  improvements 
had  been  an  absorbing  topic  in  that  state.  Among  the  improve- 
ments projected  or  under  construction  none  figured  more  prom- 
inently than  the  Virginia  and  Tennessee  railroad,  which  was  to  run 

"The  subjects  of  patronage  of  home  importing  merchants  and  discrimina- 
tory taxation  are  discussed  in  ch.  VI. 

™Cong.  Globe,  31  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  1860;  Bates,  American  Navigation:  the 
Political  History  of  Its  Rise  and  Ruin,  346. 

"See  Richmond  Whig,  March  11,  1851. 


115]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE  115 

from  Lynchburg  to  the  Tennessee  line  in  the  direction  of  Knox- 
ville,  and  was  designed  to  be  a  link  in  a  chain  of  railroads  from 
the  Chesapeake  to  Memphis  and  New  Orleans.  Another  project 
was  the  connection  of  the  Chesapeake  and  the  Ohio  valley  either 
by  canal,  as  some  advocated,  or  by  railroad.  Besides  increasing 
the  transportation  facilities  of  the  sections  through  which  they 
ran,  these  roads  were  expected  to  bring  to  Virginia  ports,  Rich- 
mond, Petersburg,  and  Norfolk,  trade  from  the  Mississippi  and 
Ohio  valleys,  and  together  with  foreign  commerce,  which  they 
would  help  to  stimulate,  restore  to  the  Old  Dominion  the  com- 
mercial position  she  once  possessed.  The  political  crisis  of  1850 
served  to  call  attention  sharply  to  the  dependent  position  of  the 
South,  and  lent  a  strong  impetus  to  movements  for  commercial 
independence.  At  this  juncture  the  Portsmouth  Pilot  was  led  to 
suggest  a  direct  trade  convention  to  meet  at  Old  Point  Comfort, 
July  4,  1850. 

The  Old  Point  Comfort  Convention,  while  not  well  attended, 
enrolled  among  its  delegates  some  very  respectable  men  of  Vir- 
ginia and  neighboring  states.68  The  reasons  which  had  brought  the 
delegates  together  were  made  very  clear  by  the  debates.  Thomas 
L.  Preston  described  the  advantages  Virginia  possessed  for  secur- 
ing Western  trade.  Senator  Morehead,  of  Kentucky,  assured  his 
auditors  that  Kentucky  was  with  the  South  in  interests,  feelings, 
and  associations,  and  preferred  railroad  communication  with  Vir- 
ginia to  connection  with  the  North.  Congressman  Ewing,  of 
Tennessee,  gave  the  warning  that  the  safety  of  the  South  depended 
upon  preserving  the  equilibrium  of  the  sections,  which  could  be 
done  by  developing  commerce  and  manufactures  in  the  South. 
R.  K.  Meade,  of  Virginia,  emphasized  the  profits  derived  by  the 
North  from  conducting  Virginia's  commerce,  and  the  saving  which 
would  be  effected  if  the  South  would  do  her  own  business.  The 
resolutions  adopted  by  the  convention  declared  it  to  be  the  duty 
of  the  Federal  government  to  extend  as  much  aid  to  a  Southern 
mail  line  to  Europe  as  to  Northern  lines,  recommended  state 
appropriations  in  aid  of  a  line  of  steamers,  and  provided  for  a 
committee  to  memorialize  Congress  and  the  Virginia  Legislature. 

In  the  closing  days  of  the  first  session  of  the  Thirty-first 
Congress  an  unsuccessful  attempt  was  made  to  secure  favorable 

"Proceedings  are  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  July  9,  12,  1850. 


Il6     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1 86 1    [ll6 

action  upon  a  bill  providing  for  government  aid  for  lines  of  steam- 
ers from  California  to  China  and  from  Philadelphia  to  Antwerp., 
A.  W.  Thompson,  a  Philadelphia  capitalist,  was  to  be  the  con-' 
tractor.  Senator  James  M.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  moved  an  amend- 
ment to  the  bill  stipulating  that  the  Atlantic  line  should  alternate 
trips  between  Norfolk  and  Philadelphia.^  The  amendment  was 
accepted  by  the  sponsors  of  the  bill.69  In  the  short  session  of  the 
same  Congress  (1850-1851)  Congressmen  Meade  and  Bocock,  of 
Virginia,  tried  to  secure  the  passage  of  a  similar  bill  based  upon 
Thompson's  plan  and  the  memorial  of  the  Old  Point  Comfort  Con- 
vention; but  it  was  defeated,70  largely  because  of  the  opposition  of 
McLane,  of  Maryland,  who  was  charged  with  fearing  that  aid  to  a 
Norfolk  line  might  compromise  Baltimore's  claims  to  government 
subsidy  for  a  line  of  her  own,71  and  because  of  the  opposition  of 
one  or  two  Virginia  representatives  who  could  not  overcome  their 
constitutional  scruples  against  government  subsidies.  Meanwhile, 
Thompson,  taking  advantage  of  the  state  of  mind  in  Virginia,  had 
petitioned  the  General  Assembly  for  aid  in  establishing  the  pro- 
jected line  between  Norfolk  and  Antwerp.72  He  stood  ready  to 
advance  two-fifths  of  the  capital  required,  provided  the  state 
would  loan  him  the  use  of  Virginia  six  per  cent  bonds  for  ten  years 
for  the  remaining  three-fifths.  Another  proposal  submitted  to  the 
General  Assembly  about  the  same  time  was  that  a  joint  stock  com- 
pany be  chartered,  three-fifths  of  whose  stock  should  be  sub- 
scribed by  the  state,  and  two-fifths  by  municipal  and  private  cor- 
porations and  by  individuals.73  A  select  committee  of  the  House 
of  Delegates  reported  in  favor  of  Thompson's  proposition;  but  its 
friends  were  unable  to  secure  action  before  the  Legislature  ad- 
journed, 1 85 1.74 

In  September,  1851,  a  well  attended  Mercantile  Convention  was 
held  in  Richmond  for  the  purpose  of  creating  public  interest  in 
direct  trade  and  working  out  a  plan  in  support  of  which  all  inter- 

™Cong.  Globe,  31  Gong.,  i  Sess.,  2051. 
'"'Ibid.,  31  Cong.,  2  Sess., -600,  613,  754,  768. 

"Ibid.,  31  Cong.,  .2  Ses's,,- 601,  613;  Richmond  Whig,  Feb.  25,  1851.   McMul- 
lin,  of  Virginia,  spoke  flglainU' the  bill.   Cong.  Globe,  31  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  758. 
""Virginia  Document  s^i^o-i^i,  doc.  LXVI. 
"Ibid.,  1850-1851,  doc'AxX'. 
""Ibid.,  1850-1851,  doc.  LXX;  Richmond  Whig,  March  15,  1851. 


PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE          llj 

ests  and  factions  in  the  state  could  unite.75  It  proved  impossible 
to  harmonize  differences.  The  convention  divided  upon  the  ques- 
tion whether  a  line  of  steamers  should  be  recommended  or  it 
should  be  left  to  future  investigation  to  determine  which  was 
preferable,  steamers  or  sailing  vessels.  The  latter  alternative  was 
adopted.  A  resolution  calling  for  Federal  aid  provoked  a  cleavage 
along  party  lines,  and  had  to  be  withdrawn.  Resolutions  offered 
by  D.  H.  London,  Richmond  importer  and  president  of  the 
Central  Southern  Rights  Association  of  Virginia,  in  favor  of  dis- 
criminatory taxation  of  indirect  imports  were  tabled  by  an  almost 
unanimous  vote  after  an  acrimonious  debate.  The  net  official  act 
of  the  convention  was  a  blanket  resolution  in  favor  of  lines  of 
steamers  or  sailing  vessels  to  Europe  and  South  America. 

In  May,  1852,  the  State  Senate  passed  a  bill  based  on  A.  W. 
Thompson's  plan;76  but  the  House  of  Delegates  allowed  it  to  go 
over  to  the  next  session,  when,  in  spite  of  the  support  of  Governor 
Johnson,  John  Y.  Mason,  and  an  all  but  unanimous  press,  it  was 
defeated.77  The  defeat  was  due  to  inability  to  agree  upon  the 
mode  and  time  of  lending  state  aid,  and  to  the  rivalry  of  the  little 
bay  ports.78  It  was  the  same  spirit  of  jealousy  which  stood  in  the 
way  of  the  adoption  of  a  practicable  policy  of  internal  improve- 
ments. The  net  result  of  all  the  discussion  and  wire-pulling  of 
three  years  was  practically  nil  as  far  as  foreign  commerce  was  con- 
cerned; they  did  serve  in  a  measure  the  secondary  purpose  of 
securing  tidewater  support  for  state  aid  to  railroads  to  the  West. 
Shortly  after  the  Old  Point  Comfort  Convention  New  York  inter- 
ests established  a  line  of  steamships  between  New  York  and  the 
Chesapeake;  Virginians  thought  the  action  had  been  influenced 
by  the  movements  in  that  state  looking  to  the  establishment  of 
direct  trade.73  In  1851  Richmond  firms  began  shipping  flour  to 

"Proceedings  are  in  the  Richmond  Whig,  Sept.  n,  12,  and  17,  1851.  The 
report  from  the  Committee  of  13,  William  Burwell,  chairman,  is  in  Virginia 
Documents,  1851-1852,  doc.  I,  p.  41  ff.;  also  in  DeBow's  Review,  XII,  3041. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  7,  1852. 

"Governor  Joseph  Johnson's  message  of  Dec.  5,  1853.  Virginia  Documents, 
1853-1854,  doc.  I.  Letter  of  J.  Y.  Mason  to  D.  H.  London,  Sept.  18,  1852.  So.  Lit. 
Mes.,  XVIII,  591  ff.  Cf.  Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  7,  1852.  Mason  had  once 
been  secretary  of  the  navy. 

"Forrest,  Wm.  S.,  Sketches  of  Norfolk,  296;  Richmond  Enquirer,  Apr.  30, 
1852. 

'"'Ibid.,  Dec.  10,  1852.    Cf.    DeBow's  Review,  XIV,  501. 


Il8     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [ll8 

Rio  de  Janeiro  and  importing  hides,  coffee,  and  other  South  Ameri- 
can products.  This  trade  had  attained  some  importance  by  i860.80 

While  these  plans  and  projects  were  being  debated  in  Virginia, 
projects  elsewhere  had  come  to  naught.  The  people  of  South 
Carolina  late  in  1850  were  considering  secession.  The  time  was 
considered  auspicious  for  inaugurating  communication  with 
Europe  by  a  line  of  steamers.  A  number  of  citizens  of  Charleston 
secured  from  the  State  Legislature  a  charter  for  the  South  Carolina 
and  European  Steamship  Company  to  build  two  steamers  to  ply 
between  Charleston  and  Liverpool.  Subscription  books  were 
opened  and  the  stock  promptly  taken.  One  of  the  steamers,  the 
South  Carolina,  was  built — at  Green  Port,  Long  Island — and 
proceeded  to  Charleston.  After  loading,  it  was  found  she  could  not 
pass  the  bar.  The  vessel  was  sold,  and  the  project  abandoned.81 
The  only  line  of  steamships  between  Charleston  and  a  foreign 
port  before  the  war  was  the  mail  line  to  Havana,  established  in 
1847  and  owned  by  M.  C.  Mordecai,  of  Charleston.  The  mail 
steamers  between  New  York  and  Chagres  touched  regularly  at 
Charleston  and  Savannah.  The  Alabama  Legislature,  1852,  chart- 
ered the  Alabama  Direct  Trade  and  Exchange  Company  with 
power  to  own  ships,  buy  and  sell  produce  and  manufactures  at 
home  and  abroad,  receive  deposits,  deal  in  domestic  and  foreign 
exchange,  and  make  advances  on  produce,  manufactures,  and 
merchandise.82  No  tangible  results  followed. 

Considerable  interest  was  manifested  throughout  the  South, 
1852-1854,  in  a  proposal  to  establish  a  line  of  steamers  between 
some  Southern  port  and  the  mouth  of  the  Amazon  river  and  in 
the  question  of  the  free  navigation  of  the  Amazon.  Peru  and 
Bolivia,  upon  the  headwaters  of  the  Amazon,  declared  the  river 
open  to  the  commerce  of  the  world,  but  Brazil  refused  to  allow 
foreign  vessels  to  navigate  it.  Lieutenant  M.  F.  Maury,  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Naval  Observatory  at  Washington,  became  inter- 
ested in  the  subject  and  memorialized  Congress,  May,  1852,  to 
establish  a  line  of  mail  steamers  between  Norfolk,  Charleston,  or 
Savannah  and  Para.  He  further  suggested  that  diplomatic  efforts 

""DeBow's  Review,  XII,  32. 

"A.  Brisbane  to  Hammond,  Feb.  25,  1851,  /.  H.  Hammond  Papers;  DeBow's 
Review,  X,  203,  315;  XVIII,  68;  National  Intelligencer,  Oct.  18,  1851;  Richmond 
Enquirer,  June  7,  1853. 

"DeBow's  Review,  X,  445-47;  XIII,  318;  XIV,  437-49. 


119]       PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE          IIQ 

be  made  to  secure  the  free  navigation  of  the  Amazon.83  He 
appealed  to  Secretary  of  State  Webster  to  take  the  matter  up,  but 
Webster  refused  to  move.84  A  series  of  long  articles  by  Maury  on 
"Amazonia"  was  published  in  DeBow's  Review  and  the  leading 
newspapers  of  the  South.85  Maury  presented  the  subject  in  the 
Southern  Commercial  Convention  at  Baltimore,  December, 
i852.86  The  subject  was  given  consideration  at  the  sessions  of  the 
Commercial  Convention  in  Memphis  and  Charleston,  1853  and 
1854;  both  endorsed  the  project  for  a  line  of  mail  steamers.87 
Maury  represented  that  the  Amazon  valley  would  be  settled  and 
developed  and  an  immense  commerce  would  grow  up  between  the 
region  and  the  United  States.  The  South  was  more  advantageous- 
ly located  for  such  a  commerce  than  was  the  North.  Commerce 
with  South  America  would  effect  the  commercial  regeneration  of 
the  South.  It  was  this  possibility  which  awakened  so  much  inter- 
est in  the  Amazon  among  Southerners.88  From  time  to  time  all 
through  the  decade  the  opinion  was  expressed  that  the  South 
should  "look  to  the  south"  rather  than  to  Europe  in  her  efforts  to 
develop  a  foreign  commerce.89  The  line  of  mail  steamers  was  not 
established;  but  the  Amazon  was  opened  to  the  navigation  of  all 
nations,  largely  as  a  result  of  Maury's  efforts. 

One  of  the  most  grandiose  schemes  for  establishing  direct  trade 
was  that  conceived  by  Col.  A.  Dudley  Mann,  of  Virginia.  He  had 
seen  being  built  in  England  the  Great  Eastern,  by  far  the  largest 
ship  built  to  that  time.  In  a  letter  to  the  people  of  the  slaveholding 
states,  August,  1856,  he  proposed  the  establishment  of  a  line  of 
four  of  these  mammoth  steamers  to  ply  between  the  Chesapeake 
and  Milford  Haven,  England.90  So  bold  a  plan  captivated  the 

"Memorial,  Western  Journal  and  Civilian,  VIII,  174-80. 

"Maury  to  Blackford,  Sept.  24,  1852,  M.  F.  Maury  Papers. 

"Also  in  book  form.  DeBow's  Review,  XVI,  231.  Articles  are  in  ibid.,  XIV, 
J36-45,  449-6o,  556-67;  XV,  36-43.  See  also  ibid.,  XII,  381  ff.;  XVI,  231-51. 

**  We  stern  Journal  and  Civilian,  IX,  321-28. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XV,  254-74;  XVI,  640;  XVII,  201,  402-5. 

MMaury  expected  that  the  Southern  states  would  soon  have  a  redundant 
slave  population,  and  hoped  the  Amazon  Valley  would  prove  an  outlet.  Western 
Journal  and  Civilian,  IX,  328;  DeBow,  Industrial  Resources,  III,  13. 

89For  example,  letter  of  Gov.  H.  A.  Wise,  of  Virginia,  to  a  citizen  of  Norfolk, 
in  Barton  H.  Wise,  Henry  A.  Wise  of  Virginia,  216  f.;  DeBow's  Review,  XXVI, 
73-6. 

"Ibid.,  XXI,  411-25. 


I2O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [l2O 

imaginations  of  the  Southern  people.  The  Southern  Commercial 
Convention  at  Savannah  endorsed  it.91  In  July,  1857,  an  en- 
thusiastic convention  in  its  support  was  held  at  Old  Point  Comfort, 
Virginia.92  Ex-President  Tyler  presided;  letters  from  Secretary  of 
State  Cass  and  other  members  of  the  cabinet  were  read;  books 
were  opened  for  subscriptions  of  stock.  An  appeal  was  made  to 
sectional  feeling.  With  a  view  to  secure  a  wide  diffusion  of  the 
stock  among  the  people,  subscribers  were  limited  for  a  period 
to  one  $100  share  each.  Most  of  the  prominent  men  of  Virginia 
subscribed.  President  Buchanan  headed  the  list  in  the  District  of 
Columbia.93  The  Virginia  Legislature,  almost  without  opposition, 
granted  a  charter  to  "The  Atlantic  Steam  Ferry  Company," 
March,  i858.94  The  thirty-six  directors  of  the  company  must  all 
be  residents  of  the  slaveholding  states  or  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  were  to  be  apportioned  on  the  basis  of  stock  subscribed.  But 
by  this  time  interest  had  begun  to  wane.  The  Commercial  Con- 
vention, meeting  at  Knoxville,  August,  1857,  had  refused  to 
recommend  the  "steam  ferry."95  Many  pronounced  it  chimerical. 
The  project  was  not  completely  abandoned,  however,  until  the 
war.96 

Several  other  direct  trade  projects  were  under  way  or  under 
consideration  in  Virginia  on  the  eve  of  the  war.  A  convention  of 
merchants  and  officials  of  fourteen  railroads  met  at  Bristol,  Vir- 
ginia, June,  1857,  upon  call  of  officers  of  the  Virginia  and  Tennes- 
see railroad,  then  on  the  point  of  completion,  to  consider  the 
subject  of  direct  trade.97  William  Ballard  Preston,  a  former  secre- 
tary of  the  navy,  was  sent  to  Europe  to  disseminate  information 
in  regard  to  the  demand  for  foreign  goods  in  Virginia  and  her 
hinterland  and  to  confer  with  capitalists,  especially  the  owners  of 
the  Great  Eastern,  upon  the  establishment  of  a  steamship  line. 
French  officials  and  capitalists  were  much  interested  in  extending 

mDeSotfs  Review,  XXII,  96.  Mann  was  present  and  a  member  of  the 
general  committee. 

"Proceedings,  ibid.,  XXIII,  321-24;  XXIV,  352-74;  Richmond  Enquirer, 
Aug.  I,  3,  5,  1857. 

°3Ibid.,  Aug.  II,  17,  1857. 

"Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1857-1858,  p.  125;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIV, 

352,  375- 

*5New  York  Herald,  Aug.  II,  17,  1857. 

mlbid.,  Mar.  19,  1861. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  June  8,  1857;  DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  553;  XXIII,  86. 


121  ]        PLANS  FOR  ESTABLISHING  DIRECT  TRADE  WITH  EUROPE          121 

the  foreign  trade  of  the  Empire  at  the  time.  Preston  was  able  to 
make  a  conditional  agreement  with  officials  of  the  Orleans  Rail- 
way Company  relative  to  a  line  of  steamers  between  Norfolk  and 
the  mouth  of  the  Loire.98  The  Virginia  Legislature  ratified  the 
agreement  by  an  act  of  March  27,  1858,  incorporating  the  Norfolk 
and  St.  Nazaire  Navigation  Company."  One-half  the  stock  was 
to  be  subscribed  in  America,  one-half  in  France;  the  directorate 
also  should  be  composed  of  an  equal  number  of  Americans  and 
Frenchmen.  American  interests  were  to  subvent  the  company  to 
the  extent  of  $12,500  per  round  trip — this  subsidy  it  was  hoped 
the  Federal  government  would  grant  for  carrying  the  mails — and 
the  French  government  was  to  be  asked  to  lend  assistance.  A 
long  correspondence  between  the  president  of  the  Merchants'  and 
Mechanics'  Exchange  of  Norfolk  and  M.  Lacoutre  and  other 
gentlemen  of  France  and  the  visit  of  an  agent,  John  D.  Myrick, 
to  France,  resulted  in  the  trial  trip  of  the  steamer  Lone  Star, 
which  was  said  to  have  been  successful  and  to  have  proved  the 
feasibility  of  direct  trade.100  By  an  act  of  February  2,  1858,  the 
Virginia  Legislature  chartered  the  Southern  Virginia  Navigation 
Company  to  establish  a  line  of  steamships  or  sailing  packets  be- 
tween the  Chesapeake  and  Europe.101  Before  November,  1860,  the 
company  had  built  one  ship,  engaged  another,  and  had  two  or 
three  others  under  construction.102  On  the  very  eve  of  secession 
the  Virginia  Legislature  incorporated  a  Richmond  and  Liverpool 
Packet  Company,  and  extended  welcome  to  a  proposal  of  M.  Pierre 
and  Brothers,  of  Paris,  to  establish  a  line  of  steamers  between 
Virginia  and  France.103 

Elsewhere  projects  did  not  reach  the  stage  of  development  they 
did  in  Virginia.  In  1857  W.  C.  Barney,  of  Washington,  attempted 
to  promote  a  line  of  steamers  between  New  Orleans  and  Bordeaux, 
France.  He  memorialized  Congress  for  the  usual  subsidy  for  carry- 
ing the  mails.  The  House  Committee  on  the  Post  Office  and  Post 
Roads  reported  favorably  upon  it.  The  Bordeaux  Chamber  of 

**DeBow's  Review,  XXVI,  584-5. 
"Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1857-1858,  p.  127. 

lv>Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Merchants'  and  Mechanics'  Exchange  of  Nor- 
folk, Virginia,  June,  1860,  p.  13. 

™Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1857-1858,  p.  187. 

loaNew  York  Herald,  Nov.  26,  1860. 

103Acts  of  the  General  Assembly,  1861,  p.  278,  342. 


122     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [l22 

Commerce  promised  cooperation  and  a  loan.  A  prospectus  was 
got  out  and  subscription  books  opened;  but  the  project  got  no 
farther.104  In  1860  British  parties  proposed  to  establish  a  line  of 
six  iron  steamers  between  New  Orleans  and  Liverpool.  The  ves- 
sels were  to  be  built  in  England  and  fly  the  British  flag,  but  one- 
half  the  stock  was  to  be  subscribed  by  Americans.  The  project  was 
endorsed  by  the  New  Orleans  Chamber  of  Commerce.105 

Thus  virtually  all  of  these  projects,  and  several  not  described, 
for  establishing  lines  of  ocean  steamers  came  to  naught.  Had  the 
Federal  government  not  abandoned,  1859,  the  policy  of  subsidiz- 
ing steamship  lines,  it  is  very  probable  that  one  or  more  Southern 
lines  would  have  been  in  operation  before  1861.  Trans-Atlantic 
lines  of  steamships  had  not  yet  proved  profitable  without  govern- 
ment aid.  The  failure  to  secure  steamship  lines  does  not  signify 
that  the  direct  foreign  imports  did  not  increase  during  the  decade. 
A  few  lines  of  sailing  packets  were  established,  and  the  number 
of  irregular  vessels  entered  considerably  increased,  as  did  the  total 
value  of  the  direct  imports.106  But  there  was  no  revolution  in  the 
course  of  Southern  commerce.  In  fact,  the  employment  of  steam 
vessels  in  the  coasting  trade  tended  to  fix  Southern  commerce  in 
its  former  channels.  Several  lines  of  steamships  were  engaged  in 
the  coasting  trade  between  New  York  and  New  Orleans  and  other 
Southern  ports  in  1860.  Such  lines  had  been  established  in  response 
to  the  demands  of  actual  commerce.  The  tendency  of  the  times 
was  toward  closer  commercial  relationships  between  the  sections, 
the  efforts  of  the  advocates  of  direct  trade  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. 


'DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  318-20;  410-14,  554;  XXIII,  415-18. 
"Ibid.,  XXVIII,  462-4. 

*See  the  tables  in  the  Appendix.  I  v  t 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  SOUTHERN  COMMERCIAL  CONVENTION, 
1852-1859 

During  the  years  1852-1859  there  met  annually  or  oftener,  in 
turn  at  Baltimore,  Memphis,  Charleston,  New  Orleans,  Richmond, 
Savannah,  Knoxville,  Montgomery,  and  Vicksburg,  sessions  of  the 
so-called  Southern  Commercial  Convention.  After  the  first  the 
time  and  place  of  meeting  and,  to  some  extent,  the  organization 
and  program  of  each  were  determined  by  its  predecessor;  so  there 
was  a  degree  of  continuity  in  their  endeavors.  Several  of  the  gath- 
erings were  very  respectable  in  point  of  numbers;  in  most  of  them, 
all  or  nearly  all  of  the  Southern  States  were  represented;  some  able 
and  well-known  men  were  among  the  delegates  in  every  case;  their 
proceedings  were  watched  in  the  South  and  even  in  the  North  with 
considerable  interest.  As  their  name  indicates,  they  were  sectional 
in  character.  The  term  "commercial"  does  not  accurately  indicate 
their  purpose,  but  cannot  be  considered  a  misnomer.  A  study  of 
this  series  of  meetings  is  conducive  to  a  better  understanding  of 
the  state  of  public  opinion  in  the  South  during  the  decade  before 
the  war  upon  questions  affecting  the  material  progress  and  pros- 
perity of  the  section. 

The  origin  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  is  not  to 
be  explained  by  any  single  event  or  isolated  circumstance.  A  non- 
political  or  semi-political  convention  was  by  no  means  a  new  thing 
in  the  South  in  1852.  Although  none  of  those  assembled  prior  to 
that  time  was  quite  of  the  type  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Con- 
vention, several  may  be  considered  forerunners  of  it.  The  direct 
trade  conventions  of  the  late  thirties  may  be  so  classed,  although 
they  were  more  restricted  in  their  objects,  and  not  section-wide  in 
their  representation.1  Those  held  in  Virginia  were  gatherings  of 
Virginians  with  a  few  scattering  delegates  from  border  North 
Carolina  counties.2  They  were  interested  primarily  in  local  prob- 
lems, although  there  was  recognition  that  the  cause  of  Virginia  was 
in  a  way  the  cause  of  the  South,  and  although  the  connection  be- 
tween them  and  the  direct  trade  conventions  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia  was  very  close.  The  Charleston  and  Augusta  conven- 

'See  ch.  I. 

'Savannah  Republican,  April  7,  1838. 

123 


124     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [124 

tions,  likewise,  were  composed  almost  entirely  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia  men.  Attempts  to  win  the  younger  states  farther 
west  to  the  cause  failed  of  the  accomplishment;  they  were  urged 
to  send  delegates  to  each  of  the  conventions,  but  did  not  do  so. 
Among  other  reasons  for  this  was  the  fact  that  the  Southwest  was 
not  yet  concerned  about  "Southern  decline." 

More  widely  representative  than  the  direct  trade  conventions, 
but  perhaps  with  less  justification  considered  a  forerunner  of  the 
Southern  Commercial  Convention,  was  the  Southwestern  Conven- 
tion in  Memphis,  November,  i845-3  In  composition  and  sentiment 
it  was  more  Western  than  Southern.  Delegates  were  present  from 
Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Missouri,  and  Iowa  Territory  as  well  as 
from  states  of  the  Southwest  and  South.  The  primary  purpose  of 
the  meeting  was  to  present  the  demands  of  the  West  for  the  im- 
provement by  the  Federal  government  of  the  navigation  of  West- 
ern rivers — demands  which  were  very  insistent  for  several  years 
prior  to  the  building  of  railroads  in  the  Mississippi  valley.  An 
attempt  was  made  to  find  constitutional  justification  for  the  im- 
provement by  the  Federal  government  of  the  Mississippi  and  its 
tributaries  which  would  be  acceptable  to  all  parties  in  the  West 
and  South.  John  C.  Calhoun,  who  understood  better  than  any 
other  Southern  leader  the  growing  power  of  the  West  and  the 
strength  of  the  demand  for  improvement  of  Western  rivers  and 
harbors,  presided  over  the  convention.  He  had  not  yet  abandoned 
hopes  of  attaining  the  presidency  of  the  United  States;  he  was 
still  firmly  convinced  of  the  desirability  of  maintaining  the  polit- 
ical alliance  of  the  South  and  West.  In  his  address  before  the 
convention  and  later  in  his  report  to  the  Senate  upon  the  Memorial 
of  the  convention,  he  went  to  such  lengths  in  meeting  the  views  of 
the  Western  men  that  it  was  with  difficulty  he  held  his  strict  con- 
structionist  followers  in  line.4  The  convention  dealt  with  other 

'Proceedings  are  in  Journal  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Southwestern  Conven- 
tion, began  and  held  at  the  city  of  Memphis  on  the  12th  of  November,  184-5.  Cf. 
DeBow's  Review,  I,  7-22;  Niles'  Register,  LXIX,  212-14;  Memphis  Daily  Eagle, 
Nov.  18,  1845.  There  were  present  529  delegates  from  12  states  and  one  territory. 

*Calhoun's  address  to  the  convention  is  in  the  Journal  of  the  Proceedings 
of  the  Southwestern  Convention,  p.  7  ff.  His  report  to  the  Senate  on  the  Mem- 
orial of  the  convention  is  in  Works,  V,  246-93.  For  Calhoun's  motives,  see  Cal- 
houn to  James  Edward  Calhoun,  July  2,  1846;  to  Thomas  G.  Clemson,  July  n, 
1846;  Duff  Green  to  Calhoun,  Sept.  24,  1845,  Calhoun  Correspondence.  For  re- 


125]  THE    SOUTHERN    COMMERCIAL   CONVENTION  125 

subjects,  it  is  true.  It  was  employed  to  stimulate  interest  in  rail- 
road communication  between  the  Mississippi  valley  and  South 
Atlantic  ports;  a  system  of  railroads  was  outlined  which  would 
effectually  bind  together  the  South  and  Southwest.5  It  endorsed 
in  a  qualified  manner  the  warehousing  system,  which  some  hoped 
would  promote  the  foreign  commerce  of  Southern  ports.0  It  gave 
some  attention  to  the  question  of  overproduction  of  cotton,  and  to 
the  diversification  of  agriculture  and  the  introduction  of  manufac- 
turing as  remedies.7  The  sequel  of  the  Memphis  convention  was 
not  so  much  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention,  however,  as  it 
was  the  large  Rivers  and  Harbors  Convention  held  in  Chicago  in 
July,  1847." 

The  alliance  of  the  South  and  West  had  carried  the  Walker 
Tariff  bill  of  1846;  but  the  Rivers  and  Harbors  bill  of  that  year 
had  been  carried  by  logrolling  methods,  the  friends  of  Eastern 
harbors,  Lake  harbors,  and  Western  rivers  pooling  their  interests. 
President  Polk  vetoed  the  bill.9  He  did  not  follow  the  constitu- 
tional arguments  employed  by  Calhoun  in  his  report  to  the  Senate 
upon  the  Memorial  of  the  Memphis  convention,  but  employed 
reasoning  which  Calhoun  believed  would  preclude  the  possibility 
of  uniting  the  South  and  West  in  support  of  a  reasonable  program 
of  river  improvement.10  The  Chicago  convention,  which  was  as 
strongly  dominated  by  the  Whigs  as  the  Memphis  convention  had 
been  by  the  Democrats  and  contained  more  Eastern  men  than  the 
Memphis  convention  had  contained  Southern,  sought  to  make 
capital  of  Folk's  veto.  There  was  an  attempt  to  unite  the  West  and 
East  upon  broad  Whig  principles,  much  broader  than  Calhoun 
could  accept.  It  was  more  than  intimated  that  the  way  to  improve 
rivers  and  harbors  was  to  elect  a  president  who  would  sign  a  bill 

ception  of  Calhoun's  address  and  report  see  Niles'  Register,  LXIX,  214,  quoting 
the  Charleston  Mercury;  So.  Quar.  Rev.,  X,  377  ff.,  441-512,  515;  DeBow's  Re- 
view, I,  83  f.;  Cong.  Globe,  33  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  246;  Calhoun  to  Mrs.  Thomas  G. 
Clemson,  June  II,  1846,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 

6 Journal,  29-40.  See  also  Sioussat,  St.  G.  L.,  "Memphis  as  a  Gateway  to  the 
West,"  Tenn.  Hist.  Mag.,  II.  77-114. 

'Journal,  96-99;  Memphis  Daily  Eagle,  Dec.  17,  1845. 

''Journal,  41-55. 

'Proceedings  in  Niles'  Register,  LXXII,  309-10,  331-33,  344-46,  365-67. 

"Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  460-66. 

"Calhoun  to  James  Edward  Calhoun,  Aug.  8,  1846;  to  J.  L.  M.  Curry, 
Sept.  14;  to  Thomas  G.  Clemson,  Sept.  20,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 


126     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l    [126 

for  that  purpose.11  The  Memphis  convention  had  been  used  to 
stimulate  interest  in  railroad  communication  between  the  Missis- 
sippi valley  and  the  South  Atlantic  seaboard;  the  Chicago  conven- 
tion was  similarly  used  to  promote  various  projects  for  railroads 
between  the  East  and  the  West.12 

In  October,  1849,  a  great  Pacific  Railroad  Convention  met  in 
Memphis.13  Its  purpose  was  to  crystallize  sentiment  in  favor  of  a 
railroad  to  the  Pacific  and  give  a  demonstration  of  the  strength  of 
the  supporters  of  a  Southern  route,  whose  eastern  terminus  would 
presumably  be  Memphis.  Five  days  earlier  a  still  bigger  conven- 
tion had  been  held  in  St.  Louis,  for  the  purpose  of  crystallizing 
sentiment  in  favor  of  a  railroad  to  the  Pacific  and  canvassing  the 
support  which  a  central  route  could  command.14  Both  of  these 
conventions  professed  to  look  upon  the  construction  of  the  Pacific 
railroad  as  a  great  national  undertaking,  which  should  receive 
in  some  way  the  aid  of  the  Federal  government,  and  which  would 
redound  to  the  benefit  of  the  whole  nation;  but  each  was  largely 
sectional  in  composition  and  sentiment,  and  each  saw  the  special 
advantages,  political  and  commercial,  to  accrue  to  the  section  and 
locality  fortunate  enough  to  secure  the  eastern  terminus  of  the 
proposed  railroad.  Inasmuch  as  the  Memphis  convention  was  so 
largely  sectional  and  dealt  with  a  project  which  occupied  much  of 
the  time  of  the  later  convention  and  whose  accomplishment  would 
do  much  to  promote  the  progress  and  prosperity  of  the  South,  it 
may  be  considered  a  forerunner  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Con- 
vention. 

"Calhoun  to  Duff  Green,  June  10,  1847,  Calhoun  Correspondence;  Niles' 
Register,  LXXII,  266-67,  3*o;  LXIII,  24,  Daniel  Webster's  letter  to  the  con- 
vention; 219,  Webster's  speech  at  the  opening  of  the  Northern  New  Hampshire 
Railway;  American  Review,  VI,  111-22;  DeBow's  Review,  IV,  122-27;  291-96. 

"American  Review,  VI,  III  ff.;  DeBow's  Review,  IV,  258. 

"Minutes  and  Proceedings  of  the  Memphis  Convention,  assembled  October 
23,  1849;  DeBow's  Review,  VII,  36,  188,  550,  551.  Cf.  National  Plan  of  an 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  Railroad  and  Remarks  of  Albert  Pike,  Made  Thereon,  at 
Memphis,  November,  1849;  Cotterill,  "Memphis  Railroad  Convention,  1849," 
Tenn.  Hist.  Mag.,  IV,  83-94. 

^Proceedings  of  the  National  Railroad  Convention,  which  assembled  in  the 
City  of  St.  Louis,  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  October,  1849.  A  third  Pacific  Rail- 
road Convention  was  held  in  Philadelphia,  April  1-3,  1850.  Proceedings  of  the 
Convention  in  Favor  of  a  National  Railroad  to  the  Pacific  Ocean — Held  in  Phil- 
adelphia, April  1,  2,  and  3,  1850.  Cf.  Mo.  Hist.  Rev.,  203-15. 


127]  THE   SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL   CONVENTION  127 

A  local  railroad  convention  which  met  in  New  Orleans  in  the 
summer  of  1851  appointed  a  committee  to  address  the  people  of 
the  Southern  and  Western  states  in  the  interest  of  a  general  railroad 
convention  of  the  South  and  West  to  meet  in  New  Orleans  in 
January,  i852.15  The  address,  while  emphasizing  the  railroad 
needs  of  the  Mississippi  valley  and  of  New  Orleans  in  particular, 
did  not  overlook  "Southern  decline"  and  the  necessity  for  united 
action  in  the  South  to  advance  her  commercial  interests.  "They 
[the  Southern  states]  have  an  interest  in  each  other's  prosperity, 
founded  upon  common  hopes,  and  fears,  and  dangers.  .  .  .  The 
interests  of  Mobile,  New  Orleans,  Charleston  or  Savannah  in  each 
other's  advancement  are  stronger  than  their  interest  in  the  ad- 
vancement of  Boston  and  New  York.  These  interests  should 
preclude  all  jealousies  and  rivalries  and  induce  a  generous  co- 
operation in  every  instance  where  the  benefit  of  the  whole  South 
is  at  issue."16  The  convention  which  met  in  pursuance  of  this 
call,17  while  primarily  interested  in  launching  New  Orleans  and 
Louisiana  upon  an  internal  improvement  program,  had  many  of 
the  earmarks  of  the  later  Commercial  Convention.  Delegates  were 
present  from  eleven  states.  Frequent  references  were  made  to 
Southern  commercial  dependence  and  its  remedy.  A  committee  on 
railroad  routes,  William  Burwell,  of  Virginia,  chairman,  reported 
a  list  of  internal  improvements  which  were  regarded  as  not  only 
indispensable  to  the  development  of  the  agricultural,  commercial, 
and  mineral  wealth  of  the  Southwestern  states,  but  also  as  "essen- 
tial to  the  equality  and  unity  of  the  states  of  this  confederacy."18 

By  this  time  conditions  had  reached  a  stage  when  a  Southern 
Commercial  Convention  could  be  assembled.  The  internal  trans- 
portation systems  of  the  country  were  developing  along  lines 
which  pfbmised  to  bind  the  Northwest  firmly  to  the  East  and  the 
Southwest  to  the  old  South.  The  Pacific  railroad  question  had 
taken  on  the  form  of  a  sectional  struggle  over  the  selection  of 
a  route.  The  entire  South  had  been  interested  in  the  discussion  of 

"DeBow's  Review,  XI,  74,  217,  340. 

ulbid.,  XI,  142-78  (quotation  from  p.  154);  Address  to  the  People  of  the 
Southern  and  Western  States,  and  more  particularly  to  those  of  Louisiana,  Texas, 
Mississippi,  Alabama,  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  New 
Orleans,  1851  (pamphlet). 

"Proceedings,  in  De Bow's  Review,  XII,  305-332,  543-68. 

"Ibid.,  XII,  315. 


128     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [128 

diversification  of  industry  and  the  development  of  cotton  manu- 
factures, and  had  been  awakened  thereby  to  a  realization  of  the 
disparity  of  the  sections  in  industrial  development.  The  people 
of  other  Southern  cities  and  states  than  those  of  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  had  become  aware  of  Southern  commercial  decline  and 
its  baneful  effects,  and  were  talking  direct  trade.  Finally,  and 
more  important,  the  sectional  struggle  over  slavery  had  reached  a 
most  bitter  stage;  the  Southern  Convention,  the  long  dream  of 
men  of  the  South  Carolina  school,  had  met  in  Nashville,  and  the 
Union  had  been  in  danger  of  dissolution.  True,  a  compromise  had 
been  effected  after  a  protracted  debate;  but  it  had  been  accepted 
in  the  South  with  misgivings,  and  in  several  states  only  after 
violent  political  struggles.  And  the  effect  of  the  whole  episode  was 
not  to  allay  sectionalism  but  to  aggravate  it.  The  old  alliance  of 
South  and  West  was  breaking  up.  The  number  was  growing 
rapidly  of  those  who  felt  that  the  South  could  trust  only  herself, 
that  the  Southern  people  must  unite  and  learn  the  art  of  co- 
operation, that  they  must  develop  their  resources  and  increase 
their  wealth  and  population,  if  the  South  were  to  maintain  her 
equality  in  the  Union  or  her  independence  out  of  it. 

It  is  difficult  to  state  whence  came  the  specific  suggestion 
which  resulted  in  the  call  of  the  first  meeting  of  the  Southern 
Commercial  Convention.  James  D.  B.  DeBow,  a  true  son  of 
South  Carolina,  had  been  a  persistent  proponent  of  the  idea  of 
bringing  the  South  together  in  convention,  and  had  used  DeBow's 
Review  to  effect  with  that  end  in  view.  When  the  interest  in 
cotton  manufactures  was  at  its  height,  DeBow  suggested  a  manu- 
facturers' convention.19  He  tried  to  arrange  the  meeting  of  an  in- 
dustrial convention  in  New  Orleans  in  the  spring  of  185 1.20  He 
claimed  to  have  been  one  of  the  original  Southern  Convention  men 
and  was  disappointed  that  "action"  could  not  be  taken  at  Nash- 
ville. After  the  compromise  measures  had  been  enacted  he  felt 
that  the  danger  to  the  South  was  only  postponed.  He,  therefore, 
favored  a  Southern  convention  to  agree  upon  what  would  consti- 
tute grounds  for  resistance,  a  Southern  mercantile  convention  as  a 
proper  means  of  strengthening  the  South  by  promoting  shipbuild- 
ing and  direct  trade,  thus  making  possible  the  retention  at  home  of 

"De Bow's  Review,  IX,  256;  X,  107. 
"Ibid.,  IX,  256,  460. 


129]  THE   SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL  CONVENTION  I2Q 

millions  of  wealth  contributed  annually  to  the  North,  and  a 
Southern  manufacturers'  convention  to  agree  to  pay  no  more 
tribute  to  Northern  looms.21  In  the  New  Orleans  Railroad  Con- 
vention of  January,  1852,  he  proposed  that  the  convention  resolve 
itself  into  an  association  for  the  promotion  of  the  industrial  inter- 
ests of  the  Southern  and  Western  states  and  provide  for  annual 
meetings,  but  his  proposal  was  not  acted  upon.22  DeBow  was  al- 
ways considered  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Southern  Commercial 
Convention.  C.  G.  Baylor,  editor  of  the  Cotton  Plant,  a  Baltimore 
publication,  also  advocated  a  convention,  and  later  claimed  to 
have  been  instrumental  in  arranging  for  the  meeting  in  Baltimore 
in  December,  1852.23  Finally,  a  number  of  Southern  leaders,  chief 
of  whom  was  Senator  William  C.  Dawson,  of  Georgia,  who 
thought  it  time  for  the  South  to  make  a  concerted  effort  to  achieve 
commercial  and  industrial  independence,  asked  Baltimore  business 
men  to  inaugurate  the  movement.24  Baltimore  was  chosen  be- 
cause she  was  the  largest  city  in  slaveholding  territory,  and  it  was 
believed  her  name  would  lend  prestige.25  A  call  was  issued  by 
the  Baltimore  Board  of  Trade  for  a  convention  to  meet  in  that 
city  December  18,  1852;  the  object  as  stated  in  the  call  was  to 
promote  foreign  and  interstate  trade.26  The  delegates  of  the 
Baltimore  convention  were  carefully  selected  with  the  idea  of 
avoiding  anything  like  a  mass  meeting.27  A  number  of  congress- 
men from  the  South  and  the  Ohio  valley  came  up  from  Washing- 
ton. The  other  delegates  were  mostly  business  men.  Senator 
Dawson  was  made  president.  Brantz  Mayer  read  in  behalf  of  the 
Board  of  Trade  a  carefully  prepared  address  of  welcome.28  He 
described  the  advantages  of  Baltimore,  her  merchants,  her  manu- 
facturers, her  banks,  and  her  facilities  for  direct  trade  with 

"DeBow's  Review,  X,  107. 

"Ibid.,  XII,  554,  S6i. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  24,  1852;  Memphis  Daily  Appeal,  Jan.  23,  1853. 

"Df Bow's  Review,  XV,  257;  New  York  Herald,  April  15,  1854;  New  Or- 
leans Commercial  Bulletin,  Jan.  17,  1855. 

"Memphis  Daily  Appeal,  June  23,  1853. 

"Baltimore  Sun,  Dec.  17,  1852;  DeBow's  Review,  XIII,  427. 

"Baltimore  Sun,  Dec.  17,  1852;  Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  24,  1852,  C.  G. 
Baylor's  remarks  in  the  convention. 

"Proceedings,  in  Baltimore  Sun,  Dec.  20,  1852;  Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec. 
24,  1852.  The  resolutions  and  Brantz  Mayer's  address  are  also  in  DeBow's  Re- 
view, XIV,  373-79. 


IjO     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1 86 1    [ijO 

Europe.  The  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railroad  was  about  completed 
to  the  Ohio  river,  and  Baltimore  would  soon  compete  with  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  for  Western  trade.  The  delegates  were 
assured  that  Baltimore  was  a  Southern  city,  devoted  to  the 
Southern  cause,  and  disposed  to  join  the  South  in  achieving  com- 
mercial independence  of  New  York,  Boston,  and  Philadelphia; 
the  way  to  achieve  commercial  independence  was  to  make  Bal- 
timore the  commercial  and  financial  center  of  the  South.  The 
convention  endorsed  all  of  Baltimore's  aspirations.  The  only 
incident  which  occurred  to  mar  the  harmony  of  the  proceedings 
was  a  remark  of  William  Burwell,  of  Virginia,  that  he  considered 
Norfolk  a  better  port  than  Baltimore.  Some  consideration  was 
given  to  the  Pacific  railroad,  for  whose  construction  it  was  ex- 
pected Congress  would  provide  in  the  session  just  beginning,  and 
to  other  important  internal  improvements  in  the  Southern  states. 
A  line  of  steamships  to  Liverpool  was  recommended,  and  also 
steam  communication  with  the  Amazon  valley.  The  convention 
sought  to  justify  itself  against  the  charge  of  sectionalism  by  the 
following  resolution: — 

Resolved,  That  while  we  disdain  the  slightest  prejudice  or 
hostility  to  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of  any  particular  section  or 
city,  North  or  South,  we  would  promote,  as  we  think  we  reason- 
ably might,  consistent  with  the  laws  of  trade,  its  great  central 
position,  the  commercial  interests  and  prosperity  of  Baltimore,  as 
being  well  calculated  to  excite  a  wholesome  and  beneficial  compe- 
tition with  more  northern  Atlantic  cities,  which  could  not  fail 
to  be  particularly  advantageous  to  the  whole  South,  Southwest, 
and  West,  and,  in  fact,  to  the  nation  at  large. 

The  convention  sat  but  one  day;  it  adjourned  to  meet  in  Mem- 
phis in  June,  1853.  The  proceedings  present  a  striking  contrast 
with  those  of  later  conventions,  which  sat  from  four  to  six  days, 
with  their  wranglings,  fiery  declamation,  numerous  committees, 
and  innumerable  resolutions. 

The  Baltimore  convention  did  not  give  universal  satisfaction. 
The  Richmond  Enquirer  thought  the  address  of  welcome  made  too 
many  allusions  to  Baltimore.29  Only  Lieutenant  Maury,  it  re- 
marked, remembered  that  there  was  such  a  place  as  Virginia. 
The  press  of  New  Orleans  thought  that  the  movement  had  been 
got  up  by  Baltimore  to  catch  trade.  New  Orleans,  they  said,  was 

"Dec.  21,  1852.  Cf.  ibid.,  April  14,  1854. 


I3l]  THE   SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL   CONVENTION  131 

a  better  Southern  city  than  Baltimore;  and  it  was  wrong  for 
Baltimore  to  try  to  injure  New  Orleans  by  diverting  her  com- 
merce.30 The  feeling  was  pretty  general  that  the  Baltimore  Board 
of  Trade  had  attempted  to  turn  what  was  intended  for  a  Southern 
movement  to  her  own  account.31  However,  a  beginning  had  been 
made. 

The  Memphis  convention  was  a  somewhat  larger  body.32 
Delegates  were  present  from  fourteen  states,  including  Missouri, 
Kentucky,  Illinois,  and  Indiana.  Thus,  like  the  Baltimore  gather- 
ing, it  was  not  strictly  Southern;  in  fact,  each  was  officially  desig- 
nated the  "Southern  and  Western  Commercial  Convention."  Like 
the  Baltimore  convention,  also,  it  was  not  marked  by  bitter  sec- 
tionalism. Senator  Dawson  again  presided,  and  several  other 
prominent  leaders  of  the  South  were  among  the  delegates,  notably 
General  John  A.  Quitman  and  H.  S.  Foote,  of  Mississippi,  and 
John  Bell,  of  Tennessee. 

The  objects  of  the  convention  had  not  yet  been  clearly  denned. 
Upon  taking  the  chair,  Senator  Dawson  stated  them  as  he  under- 
stood them.  His  statements  may  be  taken  as  the  expression  of  a 
moderate  leader  who  had  had  a  considerable  part  in  the  inaug- 
uration of  the  convention.  The  members  of  the  convention  were 
not,  he  said,  actuated  by  feelings  of  hostility  to  any  section  of  the 
Union;  but  it  had  been  seen  for  years  that  the  people  of  the 
Southern  and  Western  states  were  suffering  from  a  want  of  the 
proper  development  of  the  natural  resources  of  their  section.  Im- 
mediate action  was  necessary.  The  important  interests  of  agricul- 
ture, commerce,  and  manufactures  were  all  proper  subjects  for  dis- 
cussion. Better  transportation  facilities,  development  of  seaports, 
direct  trade,  lines  of  steamers  to  Europe  and  South  America,  im- 
provement of  rivers  and  harbors,  encouragement  of  manufactures, 

"DeBozv's  Review,  XVIII,  354;  Charleston  Conner,  Mar.  3,  1854,  quoting 
the  New  Orleans  Delta;  Memphis  Eagle  and  Enquirer,  June  16,  1853,  letter  from 
C.  G.  Baylor,  editor  of  the  Cotton  Plant  (Baltimore);  Memphis  Daily  Appeal, 
June  23,  1853;  New  Orleans  Commercial  Bulletin,  Jan.  4,  1855. 

"The  Baltimore  Sun  of  Dec.  27,  1852,  quoted  a  number  of  Southern  papers 
as  expressing  friendliness  to  Baltimore. 

"Four  hundred  ninety-six  delegates  were  present.  Proceedings,  in  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Southern  and  Western  Commercial  Convention  at  Memphis,  Ten- 
nessee, in  June,  1853  (pamphlet,  64  pp.).  See  also  the  Memphis  Daily  Appeal, 
June  7,  10,  20,  1853;  DeBow's  Review,  XV,  254-274;  Western  Journal  and 
Civilian,  X,  191-197. 


132     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1 86 1    [132 

and,  finally,  the  Pacific  railroad,  "the  great  work  of  the  age  and 
the  world,"  were  all  specified  as  subjects  which  deserved  the  con- 
sideration of  the  convention.33 

This  statement  suggested  a  wide  range  of  discussion;  the  con- 
vention went  even  beyond  it.  After  considerable  debate  resolutions 
were  adopted  asking  Congress  to  appropriate  money  to  improve 
the  channels  of  the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi  river,  the  Des 
Moines  and  Rock  river  rapids,  and  the  harbors  of  Charleston, 
Savannah,  Wilmington,  Norfolk,  Mobile,  and  Galveston.  Other 
resolutions  looked  to  aid  from  the  Federal  government  in  protect- 
ing the  lands  along  the  Mississippi  from  inundation.  Resolutions 
were  adopted  relative  to  direct  trade  and  steamship  communica- 
tion with  Europe.  Provision  was  made  for  a  committee  to  prepare 
for  publication  and  distribution,  particularly  in  the  manufacturing 
districts  of  Europe,  a  full  report  on  the  peculiar  facilities  offered 
by  the  South  and  West  for  the  manufacture  of  cotton.  The  con- 
vention resolved  that  Southern  youth  should  be  educated  at  home 
rather  than  in  Northern  schools.  Native  teachers  should  be  em- 
ployed, and  textbooks  written  by  Southern  men  should  be  used. 
The  state  governments  were  requested  to  consider  the  establish- 
ment of  normal  schools.  There  were  long  speeches  on  the  free 
navigation  of  the  Amazon  river — a  subject  which  Lieutenant  M. 
F.  Maury  had  been  agitating  for  a  year  or  two.  The  projected 
railroad  across  the  Isthmus  of  Tehuantepec  was  endorsed,  and 
the  government  was  requested  to  hasten  the  negotiations  with 
Mexico  relative  to  the  right  of  way.  The  New  Orleans  delegation 
was  especially  interested  in  the  Tehuantepec  project.  A  St.  Louis 
project  for  a  Mississippi  valley  railroad  from  New  Orleans  to 
St.  Paul  via  St.  Louis  was  likewise  endorsed,  and  Congress  was 
requested  to  grant  unsold  lands  along  the  route  in  aid  thereof. 

But  the  subject  that  occupied  the  largest  share  of  the  time  and 
interest  of  the  convention  was  the  Pacific  railroad.  "This,"  said 
the  New  Orleans  Delta,  "was  the  Aaron's  rod  that  swallowed  up 
all  others.  This  is  the  great  panacea,  which  is  to  release  the  South 
from  its  bondage  to  the  North,  which  is  to  pour  untold  wealth  into 
our  lap;  which  is  to  build  up  cities,  steamships,  manufactories, 
educate  our  children,  and  draw  into  our  control  what  Mr.  Bell 

KDeBow's  Review,  XV,  256  ff. 


133]  THE   SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL  CONVENTION  133 

calls  'the  untold  wealth  of  the  gorgeous  East.'  "3*  The  convention 
unanimously  adopted  resolutions  which  declared  the  road  a 
national  necessity,  and  requested  Congress,  as  soon  as  the  surveys 
of  routes  which  were  then  being  prosecuted  should  be  completed, 
to  adopt  such  measures  as  would  insure  the  construction  of  the 
main  trunk  at  the  earliest  possible  period.  It  refused  to  suggest 
that  the  Federal  government  construct  the  main  trunk;  but  it 
did  declare  it  right,  expedient,  and  proper  for  the  government  to 
make  large  donations  of  the  public  lands  to  the  different  states 
bordering  on  either  side  of  the  Mississippi  to  enable  all  sections 
to  connect  themselves  with  the  main  line  by  branches.  No  specific 
route  was  recommended. 

The  third  session  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  was 
held  in  Charleston  in  April,  1854.  It  was  a  much  larger  gathering 
than  either  of  its  predecessors.35  Senator  Dawson  again  presided. 
The  convention  sat  six  days.  The  debates  were  longer  and  covered 
an  even  wider  range  of  subjects  than  those  at  Memphis.  The 
Pacific  railroad  again  occupied  the  center  of  the  stage;  but  such 
subjects  as  direct  trade,  the  encouragement  of  manufacturing  and 
mining,  the  remission  of  duties  on  railroad  iron,  and  the  improve- 
ment of  rivers  and  harbors  were  discussed  at  some  length.  Among 
the  other  topics  which  received  consideration  were  opening  the 
Amazon  river  to  the  navigation  of  the  world;  the  repeal  of  the 
United  States  tonnage  duties  and  fishing  bounties;  the  admission 
of  foreign  vessels  to  the  American  coasting  trade;  direct  shipments 
of  cotton  to  the  ports  of  Continental  Europe — European  manu- 
facturers purchased  their  stocks  in  Liverpool  usually — ;  uniform 
coinage  among  the  nations  of  the  earth;  improved  mail  service 
in  the  South;  milling  and  lumbering;  agricultural  exhibits  and 
institute  fairs;  and  education  in  the  South.  The  tone  and  temper 
of  the  gathering  were  unmistakable;  it  was  a  Southern  convention 
determined  to  find  some  means  of  advancing  the  interests  of  the 
South  as  distinguished  from  the  North.  The  multiplicity  of  sub- 
ducted with  approval  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  June  24,  1853. 
MIt  was  in  fact  the  largest  of  the  whole  series.  There  were  present  857  dele- 
gates from  13  states.  The  proceedings  are  in  the  Charleston  Courier,  April  n- 
14,  17,  18,  1854;  New  York  Herald,  April  14-19  (taken  in  part  from  the  Courier); 
DeBow's  Review,  XVI,  632-41;  XVII,  91-99,  200-213,  250-61,  398-410,  491-510 
(taken  from  Charleston  papers,  chiefly  from  the  Courier). 


134     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [134 

jects  pressed  upon  it  for  attention  indicates  the  earnestness,  at 
least,  of  many  of  the  men  who  composed  it. 

Several  essays  were  made  to  define  the  objects  of  the  Southern 
Commercial  Convention.  C.  K.  Marshall,  of  Mississippi,  offered 
a  resolution  to  the  effect  that,  while  commerce  was  the  subject  for 
special  consideration  by  the  convention,  other  matters  tending  to 
the  accomplishment  of  the  general  design  of  the  development  of 
the  rights  and  resources  of  the  Southern  and  Southwestern  states 
were  legitimate  subjects.36  DeBow,  who  was  unable  to  be  present, 
wrote  to  the  committee  in  charge  of  arrangements  stating  his 
understanding  of  the  objects  of  the  convention.  He  emphasized 
the  point  that  these  conventions  were  successors  of  the  direct 
trade  conventions  of  the  late  thirties,  the  Memphis  conventions  of 
1845  and  1849,  and  the  New  Orleans  Railroad  Convention  of 
1852.  He  believed  these  conventions  had  contributed  largely  to 
the  great  development  which  had  been  exhibited  everywhere 
throughout  the  South  during  the  several  years  preceding.  Further- 
more, they  had  taught  the  South  to  see  and  feel  with  humiliation 
her  dependence  upon  the  North,  not  only  in  industry  and  com- 
merce but  in  matters  not  of  a  material  character.  As  he  saw  it, 
the  task  which  lay  before  them  was  no  less  than  the  regeneration 
of  the  South.37  This  seems  to  have  been  the  view  also  of  gentle- 
men who  addressed  the  convention;  and  this  must  be  set  down  as 
the  purpose  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  when  at  its 
best. 

The  lengthiest  debates  of  the  session  were  upon  a  scheme  pro- 
posed by  Albert  Pike,  of  Arkansas,  for  building  the  Pacific  railroad 
along  a  Southern  route  without  aid  from  the  Federal  government. 
The  Legislature  of  Virginia  was  called  upon  to  charter  a  Southern 
Pacific  Railroad  company  with  sufficient  capital  to  build  the  road. 
The  stock  was  to  be  subscribed  by  the  Southern  states  and  Cali- 
fornia to  the  sum  of  $2,000,000  each,  by  cities,  by  private  cor- 
porations, and  by  individuals.  Texas  was  expected  to  make  a 
liberal  grant  of  public  land.  The  Cherokee,  Choctaw,  and  Creek 
nations  were  to  be  invited  to  join  the  enterprise.  The  board  of 
directors  was  to  consist  of  an  equal  number  from  each  state.  The 
corporation  was  to  be  granted  power  by  its  charter  to  negotiate 

"DeBow's  Review,  XVII,  92  f. 

"Ibid.,  XVII,  95  ff.;  Charleston  Courier,  April  10,   1854. 


135]  THE   SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL  CONVENTION  135 

with  Mexico  for,  and  to  purchase  if  necessary,  a  right  of  way 
through  her  territory  to  the  Pacific  or  the  Gulf  of  California;  and 
to  agree  that  the  company  would  maintain  military  posts  along 
the  portion  of  the  road  which  should  lie  in  Mexico.38 

This  extraordinary  plan  was  opposed  upon  the  floor  by  some 
of  the  ablest  and  most  practical  men  of  the  convention,  including 
Senator  Dawson,  Lieutenant  Maury,  Judge  Nesbit,  of  Georgia, 
Governor  J.  A.  Jones,  of  Tennessee,  and  N.  D.  Coleman,  of  Mis- 
sissippi— the  last  two  being  railroad  men.  According  to  these  men, 
the  plan  was  chimerical;  it  would  be  impracticable  to  unite  the 
Southern  states  upon  it;  it  would  disrupt  the  South;  it  was  too 
sectional;  it  savored  too  much  of  politics;  definitely  broke  with  the 
Western  states;  was  of  doubtful  constitutionality;  and  the  consti- 
tutions of  several  states  forbade  them  entering  any  such  corpora- 
tion. Yet  the  convention,  voting  by  states,  unanimously  endorsed 
Pike's  scheme:  Pike  was  a  brilliant  orator  and  presented  his  plan 
in  a  most  convincing  manner;39  some  support  may  have  been 
attracted  among  strict  constructionists  by  the  omission  of  any 
demand  for  Federal  aid;  but  the  chief  recommendation  of  the 
plan  was  its  sectional  nature. 

Sectionalism  was  running  high  at  this  time.  The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill  was  before  Congress.  A  Pacific  railroad  bill  had 
been  defeated  in  the  short  session  of  the  Thirty-second  Congress, 
1853,  largely  because  partisans  of  a  Southern  route  feared  that  it 
gave  some  advantage  to  the  North.40  Since  that  time  partisans  of 
the  several  proposed  routes  had  been  exerting  themselves  to  the 
utmost  to  gain  some  advantage  in  the  struggle.  Surveys  made  in 
1853  under  the  direction  of  Jefferson  Davis,  Secretary  of  War,  had 
shown  that  the  best  Southern  route  ran  south  of  the  Gila  River  in 
Mexican  territory.41  Very  late  in  the  same  year  the  Gadsden 
treaty  had  been  negotiated  with  Mexico  securing,  among  other 
things,  the  desired  route.  While  the  Charleston  convention  was 
sitting,  the  treaty  was  being  considered  by  the  Senate  in  secret 

"Resolutions  embodying  the  plan,  DeBow's  Review,  XVI,  636-37. 

"For  debate  see  ibid.,  XVII,  205-13,  408-10,  492-506. 

40This  statement  is  based  upon  an  unpublished  study,  made  by  the  author, 
of  the  struggles  in  Congress  over  the  Pacific  railroad. 

"Reports  of  the  Explorations  and  Surveys,  to  Ascertain  the  Most  Practical 
and  Economical  Route  for  a  Railroad  from  the  Mississippi  River  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  I,  4,  29. 


136     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [136 

session;  and,  rumor  had  it,  was  meeting  opposition,  which  was 
attributed  to  the  unwillingness  of  Northern  men  to  purchase  a 
Southern  route  to  the  Pacific.42  General  Gadsden  himself  addressed 
the  convention  in  favor  of  a  resolution  in  support  of  ratification  of 
the  treaty  and  in  favor  of  Pike's  plan.43  Albert  Pike  took  strong 
sectional  grounds  in  his  speech  in  support  of  the  resolutions 
embodying  his  plan.  He  invited  the  attention  of  the  convention 
to  the  great  Northwest,  which,  he  said,  never  seemed  to  be  taken 
into  consideration  by  Southern  men.  This  region  was  bidding  for 
immigration:  laws  granting  foreign  immigrants  the  suffrage  before 
they  had  declared  their  intention  of  becoming  United  States 
citizens  were  one  inducement;  the  proposed  homestead  legislation 
was  another;  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  another.  The  North  was 
increasing  her  political  power  at  the  South's  expense.  "And  with 
this  continued  increase  in  foreign  and  Northern  influence  was  it 
not  obvious  that  the  prospect  of  the  South  ever  getting  a  Pacific 
Railroad  was  put  further  and  further  off  every  year?"  The  North 
was  looking  out  for  her  own  interests;  "the  North  knew  full  well 
that  wherever  the  Pacific  Railroad  went,  there  too,  would  go  the 
power  and  wealth  of  the  country."  The  South  should  look  to  her 
interests.  He  wanted  his  plan  to  be  a  "sort  of  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence on  the  part  of  the  South."44 

After  the  great  meeting  at  Charleston,  the  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention  languished  for  a  couple  of  years.  The  session 
in  New  Orleans  in  January,  1855,  was  very  poorly  attended  and 
attracted  little  attention  from  the  South  at  large.45  There  were 
several  reasons  for  the  poor  showing.  The  Western  rivers  were 
low,  making  travel  difficult.  Congress  and  the  state  legislatures 
were  in  session.  The  country  was  suffering  somewhat  from  a  tem- 

"Dt Bow's  Review,  XVII,  210,  408;  New  York  Herald,  April  19,  1854. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XVII,  408-9;  letter  from  John  R.  Bartlett,  one  of  the 
Mexican  boundary  commissioners,  taking  umbrage  at  Gadsden's  remarks  in  the 
convention,  Charleston  Courier,  April  28,  1854. 

"I  have  followed  the  synopses  of  his  speeches  as  given  in  DeBow's  Review, 
XVII,  208-12,  499-506.  The  same  arguments  are  set  forth  in  a  very  striking  and 
able  manner  in  a  memorial  to  the  state  legislatures  which  Pike  prepared.  Ibid., 
XVII,  593-99- 

45Two  hundred  twelve  delegates  from  twelve  states.  The  proceedings  are  in 
ibid.,  XVIII,  353-60,  520-28,  623-35,  749-60;  New  Orleans  Commercial  Bulletin, 
Jan.  10-16,  1855. 


137]  THE  SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL   CONVENTION  137 

porary  financial  stringency.*6  The  presence  of  so  many  radicals 
in  the  Charleston  convention  had  discredited  the  movement  in  the 
eyes  of  many  of  more  conservative  opinions.47 

But  the  chief  reason  for  the  poor  showing  made  was  the  attitude 
of  the  people  of  New  Orleans  and  vicinity.  The  city  council  took 
tardy  action,  and  the  committee  on  arrangements  did  little.  The 
Governor  of  Louisiana  neglected  to  appoint  delegates.  Several  of 
the  New  Orleans  newspapers  were  antagonistic,  expressing  the 
opinion  that  the  convention  had  been  decidedly  hostile  to  New 
Orleans  from  the  beginning.48  A  specific  grievance  was  the  refusal 
of  the  Charleston  convention  to  adopt  resolutions  requesting 
Congress  to  make  appropriations  for  the  improvement  of  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Mississippi.49  On  the  other  hand  there  was  a  feeling 
throughout  the  South  that  the  people  of  New  Orleans  were  only 
lukewarm  for  the  Southern  cause.  This  feeling  of  hostility  on  the 
one  hand  and  distrust  on  the  other  found  expression  upon  the 
floor  of  the  convention,  and  visiting  delegates  left  with  the  feeling 
that  they  had  not  been  cordially  received.50  The  session  at  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  early  the  following  year,  1856,  made  no  better 
showing,  only  seven  states  being  represented;51  but  in  this  case  the 
want  of  success  seems  to  have  been  largely  due  to  severe  weather 
and  to  the  fact  that,  the  meeting  having  once  been  postponed  in- 
definitely because  of  an  epidemic  of  small-pox  in  Richmond,  too 

"Charleston  Courier,  Jan.  13,  1855. 

*7Savannah  Daily  Republican,  Nov.  17,  1856;  DeBow's  Review,  XVIII,  523. 
Senator  Benton,  of  Missouri,  had  denounced  the  Charleston  convention  as  a 
disunion  convention  and  Pike's  plan  for  building  the  Pacific  railroad  as  a  plan 
for  dissolving  the  Union.  Ibid.,  loc.  cit. 

*DeBow's  Review,  XVIII,  353;  New  Orleans  Commercial  Bulletin,  Jan.  4, 
1855.  "This  feeling  of  indifference  and  apathy  is  not  at  all  to  be  wondered  at. 
All  disclaimers  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  the  series  of  Southern  Commer- 
cial Conventions,  commencing  at  Baltimore,  and  continued  at  Memphis  and 
Charleston,  were  decidedly  antagonistic  to  the  interests  of  New  Orleans;  and 
this  inimical  tendency  was  more  than  once  exhibited  in  a  manner  invidiously 
offensive  and  calculated  to  disturb  and  wound  our  amour  propre."  Ibid.,  Jan. 

17,  i8SS- 

"DeBow's  Review,  XVIII,  628. 

"Ibid.,  XVIII,  354,  624,  632,  634. 

"Proceedings,  in  ibid.,  XX,  340-354;  Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan.  31,  Feb.  I, 
2,  4,  5,  1856.  The  resolutions  are  in  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXXIV, 
392.  There  were  213  delegates  present,  of  whom  183  were  from  Virginia. 


IjS      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [138 

short  notice  was  given  of  the  time  of  the  meeting.52  The  chief  topic 
of  discussion  at  New  Orleans  was  the  Pacific  railroad;  at  Rich- 
mond, direct  trade.  Most  of  the  other  topics  discussed  at  previous 
sessions  were  considered  in  a  more  or  less  perfunctory  manner. 

The  Richmond  convention  determined  that  a  greater  effort  than 
theretofore  should  be  made  to  insure  a  large  attendance  at  the 
next  meeting;  a  committee  was  appointed  to  address  the  Southern 
people  in  its  behalf.83  The  Savannah  committee  on  preparations 
worked  hard.  But  it  was  the  political  situation  which  was  chiefly 
responsible  for  the  large  attendance  at  Savannah:  the  convention 
met  in  December,  1856,  a  month  after  the  exciting  presidential 
campaign  had  resulted  in  the  narrow  defeat  of  the  "Black  Repub- 
lican" party.64 

The  fire  eating  element  in  the  Southern  Commercial  Conven- 
tion had  been  gradually  growing.  Several  members  of  the  com- 
mittee which  issued  the  call  for  the  Savannah  convention  were 
known  to  be  disunionists.55  Many  friends  of  the  Union  had  come 
to  look  upon  the  convention  with  distrust,  and  branded  the 
Savannah  session  in  advance  a  disunion  scheme.56  The  city  council 
of  Nashville,  Tennessee,  for  example,  refused  to  appoint  delegates 
to  the  convention,  because  it  feared  its  disunion  proclivities.57  On 
the  other  hand,  the  New  Orleans  Delta,  a  journal  which  had  been 
antagonistic  when  the  dominant  purpose  was  the  economic  regen- 
eration of  the  South,  gave  cordial  support  now  that  the  objects 
were  becoming  political.58  The  convention  at  Savannah  was  com- 
posed largely  of  politicians,  and  a  large  minority,  if  not  an  actual 
majority,  were  disunionists.59  James  Lyon,  of  Virginia,  upon  tak- 

"DfBow's  Review,  XX,  340. 

"Ibid.,  XX,  351;  XXI,  550-552  (the  call). 

"Savannah  Republican,  Oct.  17,  21,  29,  1856.  There  were  564  delegates  from 
ten  states. 

"The  Savannah  Republican  thought  that  "aside  from  the  known  character 
and  sentiment  of  the  men  who  compose  that  committee,"  there  was  nothing  in 
the  call  that  could  be  tortured  into  a  disunion  sentiment.  Nov.  17,  1856.  The 
Republican  was  a  Union  paper. 

"The  Savannah  Republican,  Dec.  I,  1856. 

"Ibid.,  Nov.  25. 

MQuoted  in  the  Charleston  Courier,  Nov.  6,  1856. 

"The  Savannah  Republican,  Dec.  16,  1856,  thought  the  convention  was  by 
large  odds  a  "conservative  body,"  but  admitted  the  presence  of  a  considerable 
number  of  disunionists.  A  list  of  the  delegates  is  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  82  ff. 


139]  THE    SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL   CONVENTION  139 

ing  the  chair,  stated  the  objects  of  the  convention  as  they  had 
already  been  stated  several  times.  He  defended  the  convention 
against  the  charge  of  disunionism.  It  was  commercial  and  not 
political  independence  the  South  sought.  But,  in  a  strain  quite 
common  in  that  day,  he  "looked  to  the  future,"  and  expressed 
the  fear  that  the  time  might  come  when  the  South  would  have  to 
defend  her  rights.  For  such  a  time  it  behooved  her  to  be  strong 
and  ready.60 

The  convention  considered  rather  perfunctorily  the  subjects 
discussed  at  previous  sessions.61  Albert  Pike  was  again  able  to 
secure  endorsement  of  his  plan  for  building  a  railroad  to  the 
Pacific.  A.  Dudley  Mann's  scheme  for  establishing  a  "steam  ferry" 
between  the  Chesapeake  and  England  was  endorsed;  as  was  -also 
Thomas  Rainey's  project  for  a  line  of  steamships  from  New  York 
to  the  La  Plata,  via  Savannah.  But  the  chief  interest  was  in 
questions  more  political  in  character.  Robert  Toombs  addressed  a 
letter  to  the  convention  proposing  that  the  state  legislatures  en- 
courage direct  trade  by  levying  an  ad  valorem  tax  upon  the  sale 
of  all  goods  imported  into  their  respective  states  except  goods  im- 
ported directly  from  foreign  countries.  Such  a  tax,  Toombs  be- 
lieved, would  not  only  enable  the  states  to  dispense  with  direct 
taxation,  but  would  also  provide  ample  revenue  to  carry  out  works 
of  internal  improvement.62  The  letter  was  referred  to  the  general 
committee,  which  reported  not  Toombs'  plan  but  resolutions  in 
favor  of  free  trade  and  direct  taxation  as  measures  best  calculated 
to  promote  direct  trade.  The  report  was  tabled  (by  a  vote  of 
57-24) ;  but  the  subject  was  kept  alive  by  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  to  report  upon  it  at  the  next  session.63 

Resolutions  in  favor  of  reopening  the  African  slave  trade,  an 
issue  raised  shortly  before,61  were  introduced  and  debated  at 

"Savannah  Republican,  Dec.  9,  1856;  DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  86-7. 

"Proceedings,  in  Official  Report  of  the  Debates  and  Proceedings  of  the  South- 
ern Commercial  Convention,  assembled  at  Knoxville,  Tennessee,  August  10,  1857, 
Appendix:  Proceedings  of  the  Southern  Convention  at  Savannah.  Also  in  De- 
Bow's  Review,  XXII,  81-105,  216-24,  307-18;  Savannah  Republican,  Dec.  9-13, 
1856;  Charleston  Courier,  Dec.  11-13. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  102-104;  Charleston  Courier,  Dec.  15,  1856.  The 
plan  was  not  original  with  Toombs.  For  fuller  discussion  see  below,  p.  167  f. 

"Proceedings  and  debate,  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  92  ff.,  307-18. 

'The  question  was  fairly  launched  by  Governor  Adams,  of  South  Carolina, 
in  his  message  to  the  Legislature,  Nov.  24,  1856.  Charleston  Courier,  Nov.  26. 


140     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [  140 

length,  the  debate  turning  not  so  much  upon  the  propriety  of  con- 
sidering such  a  question  in  a  commercial  convention  as  upon  the 
expediency  of  reopening  the  foreign  slave  trade.  This  question, 
too,  was  carried  over  by  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  report 
at  the  next  meeting  of  the  convention.65  Resolutions  were  also 
adopted  recommending  organized  Southern  emigration  to  Kansas; 
requesting  Southern  representatives  in  Congress  to  inquire  whether 
their  respective  states  had  received  their  full  quota  of  the  public 
arms,  and  to  insist  that  Southern  posts  be  properly  fortified; 
recommending  the  establishment  of  state  armories;  and  expressing 
sympathy  with  the  "efforts  being  made  to  introduce  civilization 
in  the  States  of  Central  America,  and  to  develop  these  rich  and 
productive  regions  by  the  introduction  of  slave  labor,"  that  is, 
with  the  Walker  filibusters.66 

The  Southern  Commercial  Convention  had  now  reached  a 
stage  where  nothing  could  be  expected  from  it  in  the  way  of  ad- 
vancing commerce  and  industry  in  the  South.  The  committee 
which  issued  the  call  for  the  succeeding  session  at  Knoxville 
styled  it,  rather  suggestively,  the  "Southern  Convention,"  and 
declared  its  purpose  to  be  to  unite  the  South  upon  a  sectional 
policy.  "Every  other  purpose,"  said  the  committee,  "is  of  trifling 
importance  in  comparison  with  the  high  moral  and  social  objects 
of  the  Convention.  They  are  intended  to  spread  far  and  wide, 
correct,  enlarged,  and  faithful  views  of  our  rights  and  obligations, 
and  to  unite  us  together  by  the  most  sacred  bonds  to  maintain 
them  inviolate  for  ourselves  and  our  posterity."67  At  Knoxville  in 
August,  i857,68  J-  D.  B.  DeBow,  already  an  avowed  disunionist, 
was  made  president,  and  opened  the  convention  with  a  ringing 
disunion  speech.  He  admitted  that  the  convention  had  built  no 
railroads  and  established  no  steamship  lines;  but  it  had  caused 
the  people  of  the  South  to  understand  the  importance  of  all  those 
things;  and  they  would  come  in  the  fullness  of  time.  It  had  taught 
the  people  that  the  South  had  rights  a  thousand  times  more  valu- 

'"DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  216-224  (summary  of  the  debate). 

6tlbid.,  XXII,  96-102   (resolutions  of  the  convention  in  full). 

"Ibid.,  XXIII,  193. 

"Proceedings,  in  Official  Report  of  the  Debates  and  Proceedings  of  the 
Southern  Commercial  Convention,  assembled  at  Knoxville,  Tennessee,  August 
10th,  1857;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  298-320;  New  York  Herald,  17,  18,  19 
(best  report).  There  were  710  delegates  from  eleven  states  and  Arizona  territory. 


I4l]  THE  SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL  CONVENTION  14! 

able  than  the  Union,  and  that  she  had  resources  sufficient  to  make 
her  important  in  the  Union  or  to  enable  her  to  maintain  herself 
as  an  independent  nation.69 

Resolutions  in  regard  to  reopening  the  foreign  slave  trade  were 
introduced  and  debated  at  great  length.  By  a  scale  vote  of  66  to 
26  a  resolution  was  adopted  which  put  the  convention  on  record 
in  favor  of  the  annullment  of  that  article  of  the  Webster-Ash- 
burton  treaty,  ratified  November  10,  1842,  which  provided  for 
keeping  a  squadron  of  naval  vessels  off  the  coast  of  Africa  for  the 
purpose  of  suppressing  the  slave  trade.  An  amendment  offered 
by  a  Tennessee  delegate  declaring  it  "inexpedient  and  contrary  to 
the  settled  policy  of  this  country  to  repeal  the  laws  prohibitory  of 
the  African  slave  trade"  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  40  for,  52 
against.70  The  amendment  was  almost  identical  in  language  with 
a  resolution  introduced  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  December 
15,  1856,  by  James  L.  Orr,  of  South  Carolina,  and  adopted  with 
only  eight  dissenting  votes.71  One  delegate  broached  the  subject 
of  free  immigration,  but  it  did  not  meet  with  favor  among  the  body 
of  delegates;72  it  was,  of  course,  a  much  more  practical  subject. 
Another  long  debate  occurred  upon  the  resolution,  offered  by  W. 
W.  Boyce,  of  South  Carolina,  declaring  that  the  system  of  duties 
on  imports  should  be  abandoned  by  the  Federal  government  and 
direct  taxation  be  resorted  to  exclusively.73  Whatever  the  merits 
of  absolute  free  trade,  its  establishment  in  the  Union  was  about  as 
impossible  as  was  reopening  the  foreign  slave  trade.74 

It  is  true,  the  former  objects  of  the  convention  were  not  com- 
pletely lost  sight  of.  A.  Dudley  Mann's  scheme  for  establishing  a 
steamship  line  between  Chesapeake  Bay  and  Milford  Haven  was 
debated  and  endorsement  defeated,  probably  at  the  instigation  of 
friends  of  rival  Virginia  projects.75  A  resolution  was  adopted 

™DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  225-38;  Richmond  Enquirer,  Aug.  17,  1857. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  309-10;  New  York  Herald,  Aug.  18. 

"Ibid.,  Aug.  19;  Cong.  Globe,  34  Cong.,  3  Sess.,  125-126. 

"New  York  Herald,  Aug.  19;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  319. 

nlbid.,  XXIII,  313  ff. 

"The  convention  was  not  of  a  practical  bent:  a  good  part  of  two  days  was 
spent  debating  a  resolution  to  exclude  reporters  of  Northern  newspapers.  New 
York  Herald,  Aug.  17,  1857;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  302-305. 

"New  York  Herald,  Aug.  17;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  306,  308. 


142     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-!  86 1    [142 

recommending  the  extension  of  state  aid  to  steamship  lines  be- 
tween Southern  and  foreign  ports.  The  Federal  government  was 
requested  to  grant  to  Southern  steamship  lines  the  same  subsidies 
for  carrying  the  mails  that  it  granted  to  Northern  lines.  The  meet- 
ing recommended  patronage  of  home  manufactories  and  of 
merchants  who  imported  directly  from  foreign  countries.  Resolu- 
tions were  adopted  asking  the  Federal  government  to  fortify  the 
harbors  of  Port  Royal,  South  Carolina,  Mobile,  Alabama,  and 
Beaufort,  North  Carolina,  and  make  them  coaling  stations  for 
large  government  steamers.  A  resolution  recommending  taxation 
by  the  Southern  states  upon  sales  within  their  respective  borders 
of  articles  manufactured  in  the  North  was  rejected.  A  committee 
was  appointed  to  memorialize  Congress  upon  the  subject  of  duties 
imposed  by  foreign  countries  upon  American  tobacco;76  the  duties 
imposed  by  some  countries  were  very  high,  and  it  was  felt  that 
the  American  government  had  not  made  the  effort  it  might  have 
made  to  secure  their  reduction.  The  Pacific  railroad  was  not 
mentioned.  There  were  the  usual  resolutions  relative  to  Southern 
education.  The  disposition  to  call  for  Federal  aid  for  various 
purposes  is  noteworthy. 

In  the  earlier  sessions  of  the  Commercial  Convention  there  had 
been  a  sprinkling  of  public  men  of  more  than  local  prominence, 
and,  of  course,  a  larger  number  of  local  politicians.  The  majority 
of  the  delegates  came  from  towns  and  cities;  but  the  planters  had 
been  well  represented.  In  the  earlier  meetings,  as  in  the  later, 
there  were  editors,  preachers,  physicians,  and  professors;  but  there 
were  also  a  large  number  of  business  men,  bankers,  merchants,  a 
few  manufacturers,  and  men  interested  in  promoting  particular 
railroad  projects,  steamship  lines,  or  other  enterprises,  for  which 
they  hoped  to  secure  the  endorsement  of  the  convention.  By  the 
time  of  the  Knoxville  convention  this  latter  element  had  practi- 
cally ceased  to  attend.  After  the  Knoxville  meeting  the  dwindling 
conservative  element  also  disappeared  from  the  convention,  and  it 
fell  everywhere  into  disrepute  except  among  the  disunionists,  who 
continued  to  hope  that  it  would  serve  some  useful  purpose  in  mak- 
ing Southern  men  acquainted  with  each  other,  in  consolidating 

"The  memorial  is  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  291-300. 


143]  THE   SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL   CONVENTION  143 

Southern  feeling,  and  in  harmonizing  differences  between  different 
quarters  of  the  South.77 

The  Montgomery  convention,  May,  1858,  was  well  attended.78 
The  debates,  as  far  as  oratory  was  concerned,  were  more  brilliant 
than  those  of  any  other  session  of  the  series.  Among  the  orators 
were  Henry  W.  Milliard  and  William  L.Yancey, of  Alabama, rivals 
of  long  standing.79  But  it  was  not  a  commercial  convention;  it  was 
a  gathering  of  disunionists.  The  Montgomery  Daily  Confederation 
said,  "every  form  and  shape  of  political  malcontent  was  there 
present,  ready  to  assent  in  any  project  having  for  its  end  a  disso- 
lution of  the  Union,  immediate,  unconditional,  final."80  Edmund 
Ruffin,  of  Virginia,  himself  an  ardent  secessionist,  found  only  two 
delegates  outside  the  Virginia  delegation  who  were  not  disunion- 
ists.81 But  the  proceedings  took  a  turn  which  all  secessionists  even, 
could  not  approve.  Practically  the  whole  time  of  the  session  was 
devoted  to  debating  the  question  of  reopening  the  African  slave 
trade.  The  debate  proved  the  delegates  to  be  hopelessly  divided, 
not  only  upon  the  expediency  of  reopening  the  foreign  slave  trade, 
but  also  upon  the  more  practical  question,  whether  or  not  agita- 
tion for  the  repeal  of  Federal  laws  prohibitory  of  the  slave  trade 
would  promote  or  injure  the  cause  of  disunion.82  Ridiculed  both 

''Address  of  the  committee  which  called  the  Montgomery  convention. 
Charleston  Mercury,  April  8,  1858;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  424-28.  The  Knox- 
ville  (Tenn.)  Citizen  thought  the  call  "an  invitation  to  take  counsel  whether  the 
Union  can  be  longer  maintained  or  is  worth  maintaining."  Quoted  in  Charleston 
Mercury,  April  20,  1858. 

"About  400  delegates  were  present  from  ten  states.  Proceedings,  in  DeBow's 
Review,  XXIV,  574-606;  Montgomery  Daily  Confederation,  May  11-15,  1858. 

"Yancey's  part  in  the  convention  is  discussed  at  length  in  DuBose,  The  Life 
and  Times  of  William  Lowndes  Yancey,  358  ff.  Cf.  Ruffin' s  Diary,  entry  for  May 
13,  1858;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  583-88. 

""May  18,  1858.  "When  the  South  gets  ready  to  dissolve  the  Union,  all  she 
has  to  do  is  to  reassemble  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  which  met  at 
Montgomery  and  give  the  word."  Milledgeville  (Georgia)  Federal  Union,  quoted 
in  the  New  Orleans  Picayune,  May  25,  1858.  A.  P.  Calhoun,  son  of  John  C. 
Calhoun,  and  a  disunionist  per  se,  was  president. 

^Ruffiin's  Diary,  May  11,  1858. 

"Charleston  Mercury,  May  15,  1858.  The  press  of  South'  Carolina  was  al- 
most unanimous  in  recommending  that  delegates  be  sent  to  Montgomery,  think- 
ing the  result  would  be  to  harmonize  and  consolidate  the  South.  When,  how- 
ever, the  introduction  of  the  slave  trade  question  served  only  to  sow  seeds  of 


144     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,l84O-l86l    [144 

in  the  North  and  the  South,83  denounced  by  the  Union  element  in 
the  South,  and  distrusted  by  the  cooler  headed  disunionists,84  the 
Vicksburg  meeting,  in  May,  1859,  was  able  to  summon  only  a 
corporal's  guard,  chiefly  of  the  more  radical  type  of  disunionists. 
For  five  days  the  convention  indulged  in  heated  debate  upon  the 
great  questions  confronting  the  South,  particularly  the  reopening 
of  the  African  slave  trade,  adopted  a  string  of  resolutions  as  long 
as  those  of  its  predecessors,  and  adjourned  to  meet  again  at  the 
call  of  the  president.85  That  gentleman  chose  not  to  issue  the  call; 
and,  thus,  rather  ingloriously  the  Southern  Commercial  Conven- 
tion came  to  an  end. 

There  were  reasons  for  the  change  in  the  character  of  the  per- 
sonnel and  the  perversion  of  purpose  of  the  Southern  Commercial 
Convention  other  than  the  growing  intensity  of  the  sectional  strug- 
gle and  the  aggressiveness  of  the  disunion  elements.  With  the 
exception  of  the  one  at  Baltimore,  these  assemblies  were  practi- 
cally mass  meetings.  The  task  of  insuring  a  large  attendance  was, 
in  the  majority  of  instances,  left  to  a  committee  of  the  city  council 
or  board  of  trade  of  the  city  in  which  the  convention  was  to  meet. 
Delegates  were  appointed  by  governors,  mayors,  city  councils, 
boards  of  trade,  and  meetings  of  citizens.  In  making  their  selec- 
tions they  were  governed  solely  by  their  own  judgment;  for  no 
qualifications  for  membership  were  prescribed.  Distinguished  in- 
dividuals were  sometimes  invited  by  the  local  committee;  a  general 
invitation  was  always  extended  to  editors.  Not  a  tenth  part  of 
those  designated  as  delegates  attended.  No  one  participated  in  the 

dissension,  the  press  of  the  state  very  generally  condemned  it.  Camden,  (S.  C.) 
Journal,  quoted  in  the  Montgomery  Daily  Confederation,  May  15,  1858.  Ed- 
mund Ruffin  was  very  much  disappointed  at  the  turn  the  convention  took, 
though  he  saw  redeeming  features.  Diary,  May  11-16,  1858. 

'"'"Was  there  ever  such  another  gathering  in  all  this  world  as  the  Vicksburg 
fire  eaters'  convention?  Let  Garrison  and  his  motley  crew  of  old  women  in 
breeches,  and  would-be-men  in  petticoats  retire  from  the  field.  They  are  tame, 
flat  and  stupid  compared  with  these  fiery,  fussy,  belligerent,  and  terrible  South- 
ern salamanders."  New  York  Herald,  May  18,  1859. 

"When  Georgia  and  Alabama  refused  to  appoint  delegates,  the  Montgomery 
Daily  Confederation  remarked:  "These  Southern  Commercial  Conventions  have 
run  their  course  and  we  shall  hear  no  more  of  them  forever."  May  14,  1859. 

"Proceedings  in  New  York  Herald,  May  18,  21;  DeBow's  Review,  XXVI, 
713;  XXVII,  94-103,  205-20,  360-65,  468-71  (taken  largely  from  the  New  York 
Herald). 


145]  THE   SOUTHERN    COMMERCIAL   CONVENTION  145 

proceedings  who  had  not  been  certified  as  a  delegate;86  but,  it  is 
evident,  anyone  who  desired  to  attend  could  readily  secure  the 
necessary  credentials.  Thus  there  was  nothing  in  the  organization 
of  the  convention  to  present  a  change  in  the  character  of  the 
personnel. 

When  the  convention  failed  to  produce  the  results  which  its 
founders  hoped  for  it,  many  of  its  early  patrons  confessed  it  a 
failure  and  ceased  to  attend  it.  This  failure  was  due  in  large  part 
to  the  inherent  limitations  of  a  convention  as  a  means  of  effecting 
a  revolution  in  commerce  and  industry.  It  was  unreasonable  to 
expect,  as  many  seem  to  have  expected,  a  convention  to  build 
railroads,  establish  steamship  lines,  erect  cotton  factories,  or  open 
mines.  Numerous  examples  can  be  cited  of  individual  local  con- 
>  ventions,  particularly  railroad  conventions,  held  during  the  decades 
preceding  the  Civil  War  which  aided  greatly  in  crystallizing  the 
sentiment  of  their  respective  communities  in  favor  of  particular 
railroad  or  other  projects  and  in  securing  subscriptions  to  the 
capital  stock.  A  few  might  be  mentioned  which  powerfully  influ- 
enced a  city  or  state  to  embark  upon  an  internal  improvements 
program.  But  a  convention  representative  of  many  so  widely 
separated  communities  and  so  many  conflicting  interests  as  was 
the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  could  not  be  expected  to 
accomplish  anything  so  tangible  in  character. 

The  convention  failed  largely,  however,  to  accomplish  what  it 
might  legitimately  have  been  expected  to  accomplish.  The  meet- 
ings were  not  well  managed.  No  programs  were  made  before 
convening;  and  no  efforts  were  made  to  have  subjects  presented 
by  those  best  prepared  to  discuss  them.  There  was  no  steering 
committee.  The  rules  of  the  House  of  Representatives  were  fol- 
lowed; the  chair  recognized  the  first  to  claim  the  floor,  and  debate 
was  rarely  limited.  The  most  fluent  orators  were  able  to  monop- 
olize the  time  of  the  convention  to  the  exclusion  of  practical  busi- 
ness men,  whose  counsels  might  have  been  more  worth  while.  As 
the  objects  of  the  convention  were  not  strictly  defined,  anyone 
with  a  hobby  could  secure  a  hearing.  Too  large  a  part  of  the  time 
was  spent  in  discussing  panaceas,  magnificent  schemes  like  the 
Pacific  railroad  or  the  navigation  of  the  Amazon.  Things  of  just 

""However,  the  conventions  sometimes  invited  distinguished  visitors  present 
to  participate  in  the  proceedings  as  delegates. 


146     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [  146 

as  great  importance  but  appealing  less  to  the  imagination,  such  as 
geological  surveys,  banking  facilities,  boards  of  trade,  advertising, 
encouragement  of  home  industry  by  correction  of  the  irregularities 
of  taxation  systems  or  by  bounties,  were  not  taken  up  in  real 
earnest.  Immigration,  except  of  negro  slaves,  was  not  discussed. 
No  consideration  was  given  the  possibility  of  utilizing  the  poor 
white  population  in  productive  industry.  No  invitations  were  sent 
to  foreign  capitalists. 

Great  faith  was  put  in  the  efficacy  of  resolutions.  All  resolu- 
tions introduced  were  referred  to  a  general  committee  composed 
of  a  number  of  delegates  from  each  state,  from  which  they  were 
reported  after  due  consideration  to  be  acted  upon  by  the  whole 
convention.  Resolutions  deemed  important  were  debated  at  length, 
and  the  voting  thereon  would  not  have  been  watched  more  jeal- 
ously had  the  convention  been  a  legislative  body  framing  the  laws 
of  the  land.87  Said  the  New  York  Tribune:  "For  a  quarter  of  a 
century  past  she  has  been  holding  conventions,  at  which  it  has 
been  resolved  that  Norfolk,  Charleston,  and  Savannah  should  be- 
come great  commercial  cities,  which  obstinately  they  refuse  to 
be."88  The  convention  might  have  been  employed  to  better  advan- 
tage had  it  collected  useful  information  in  regard  to  economic 
conditions  in  the  Southern  states  and  disseminated  it.  Such  a  work 
would  at  least  have  contributed  to  a  better  understanding  of  the 
causes  for  the  backwardness  of  the  South — a  useful  preliminary 
to  a  prescription  of  the  remedies.  The  convention  left  no  reports 
or  publications,  however,  comparable  even  to  the  reports  and  ad- 
dresses of  McDuffie,  Hayne,  Longstreet,  and  Mallory,  of  the  direct 
trade  conventions  of  1837-1839.  This  was  due  to  the  disinclination 
of  individuals  to  contribute  anything,  except  speeches  and  resolu- 
tions, to  make  the  convention  a  success. 

"Voting  was  by  states.  In  some  of  the  conventions  (Memphis  and  Charles- 
ton) each  state  was  allowed  one  vote,  in  others  a  number  equal  to  the  state 
representation  in  Congress.  This  system  had  some  incongruous  results;  often  one 
or  two  delegates  from  a  poorly  represented  state  cast  the  entire  vote  of  the  state, 
and  thus  had  as  much  to  do  with  determining  the  official  action  of  the  conven- 
tion as  a  hundred  delegates  from  another  state. 

""Reprint,  The  North  and  the  South,  1854.  Also  quoted  in  Charleston  Cou- 
rier, April  24,  1854.  "Much  time  is  consumed  in  talking,  and  most  scrupulous 
attention  is  paid  to  punctilio  and  the  rules  of  debate  ....  but  as  soon  as  the  fiat 
of  the  convention  has  gone  forth,  the  members  seem  to  think  that  their  task  is 
complete." 


147]  THE   SOUTHERN   COMMERCIAL  CONVENTION  147 

Time  and  again  recess  committees  were  appointed  to  investigate 
and  report,  to  memorialize  Congress  or  the  state  legislatures,  and 
for  other  purposes.  With  a  few  exceptions  they  failed  to  do  the 
work  assigned  them.  At  Memphis  an  able  committee  was  named 
to  prepare  for  publication  and  distribution,  especially  in  the  man- 
ufacturing districts  of  Europe,  a  full  report  of  the  peculiar  facilities 
offered  by  the  Southern  and  Western  states  for  the  manufacture 
of  cotton.  This  was  a  very  worth-while  task.  The  committee  was 
not  supported  in  its  labors,89  however,  and  there  is  no  record  that 
it  made  any  report.  The  Charleston  convention  appointed  a  com- 
mittee of  three  from  each  state  to  gather  statistics  and  other  infor- 
mation on  mining,  manufacturing,  lumbering,  milling,  internal 
improvements,  and  capacities  for  trade  and  commerce  in  the 
South,  to  address  the  people,  urge  the  legislatures  to  action  in 
favor  of  education,  manufacturing,  shipbuilding,  direct  trade,  and 
mining,  and  report  to  the  next  convention.  The  committee  was 
divided  into  five  sub-committees  with  able  chairmen.90  This  com- 
mittee, notwithstanding  the  immensity  of  the  task  imposed  upon 
it,  might  have  performed  a  useful  service  had  it  gone  intelligently 
to  work.  At  the  succeeding  convention  the  chairmen  of  the  sub- 
committees had  no  reports  whatever,  and  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  transmitted  certain  documents  and  a  letter  relative  to 
his  duties.91  Naturally  this  failure  to  take  seriously  the  work 
assigned  the  committees  tended  to  convince  practical  men  that  no 
good  could  come  from  these  meetings.  "But  it  cannot  be  expected," 
said  one  delegate,  "that  a  commercial  convention  can  produce  any 
useful  result  when  committees  appointed  by  it  pay  no  attention  to 
subjects  committed  to  them,  after  adjournment."92 

In  the  earlier  sessions  of  the  convention  an  apparently  honest 
attempt  was  made  to  keep  party  politics  out  of  the  proceedings. 
It  proved  well  nigh  impossible  to  do  so.  Politics  played  a  very 
large  part  in  the  life  of  the  South;  from  the  very  first  many  of  the 
delegates  were  politicians;  and  many  of  the  matters  which  legiti- 
mately came  before  the  convention  had  become  party  questions. 
Whig  and  Democratic  members  of  the  convention  watched  mem- 

"DeBotv's  Review,  XV,  268,  432. 

"Ibid.,  XVI,  635;  XVII,  325. 

"Ibid.,  XVIII,  357. 

"Ibid.,  XVIII,  524,  remarks  of  Albert  Pike. 


148     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, l84<>l86l    [148 

bers  of  the  opposite  political  faith  closely  to  see  that  they  did  not 
attempt  to  make  political  capital  from  the  action  of  the  convention. 
The  more  partisan  journals  approved  or  disapproved  the  conven- 
tion according  as  their  party  or  the  opposition  party  could  better 
capitalize  its  proceedings.93  At  Memphis  a  political  debate  over 
resolutions  calling  upon  the  Federal  government  to  appropriate 
money  for  the  improvement  of  rivers  and  harbors  was  avoided 
with  difficulty.94  The  opponents  of  Federal  aid  to  internal  im- 
provements, led  by  General  John  A.  Quitman,  forced  the  omission 
from  the  resolutions  on  a  Pacific  railroad,  of  a  clause  calling  upon 
the  government  to  build  the  main  trunk.95  At  Charleston  the  same 
questions  were  fought  over.  It  was  evident  that  a  large  majority 
was  willing  to  ask  the  government  to  improve  rivers  and  harbors.96 
A  Louisiana  delegate  threatened  to  speak  all  week  before  he  would 
see  the  convention  turned  into  a  Whig  meeting.  Governor  Chap- 
man, of  Alabama,  served  notice  that  the  next  convention  would 
see  few  delegates  from  Democratic  Alabama  if  the  resolution  was 
passed.  A  Georgia  Whig  appealed  to  the  convention  to  keep  out 
party  questions,  and  the  resolution  was  withdrawn.97  The  intro- 
duction of  party  politics  discredited  the  convention  in  the  eyes  of 
many  who  had  hoped  that  some  real  good  would  flow  from  it  in 
the  way  of  promoting  the  material  prosperity  of  the  South. 

Defenders  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  admitted 
the  justice  of  many  of  the  criticisms  made  of  it  both  at  home  and 
in  the  North.  They  sometimes  countered,  however,  with  the  com- 
plaint that  the  fault  lay  in  the  failure  of  Congress  and  the  state 
legislatures  to  act  upon  the  convention's  recommendations.  And, 
with  a  very  few  exceptions,  it  would  be  impossible  to  name  any 
concrete  suggestions  which  were  acted  upon.  This  defense  over- 

""Before  the  Charleston  convention  met,  the  Richmond  Enquirer  believed  it 
would  be  composed  of  able  and  practical  men  and  confidently  hoped  it 
would  take  action  towards  securing  Southern  commercial  independence.  But 
some  of  the  views  there  expressed  were  too  ''federal"  to  harmonize  with  the 
Enquirer's  strict  construction  principles;  and  the  convention  was  described  as 
''an  abortion  if  not  something  worse."  April  4,  14,  21,  1854.  Two  years  later  the 
Enquirer  was  again  the  champion  of  the  convention.  Jan.  28,  31,  1856. 

^De  Bow's  Review,  XV,  265. 

"Ibid.,  XV,  265  ff.,  270  f. 

•'Ibid.,  XVII,  261. 

"Ibid.,  XVII,  400  ff.;  New  York  Herald,  April  19,  1854. 


THE   SOUTHERN    COMMERCIAL   CONVENTION  149 

looks  the  fact  that  the  convention  might  have  served  the  cause  in 
other  ways  than  through  recommendations  to  legislative  bodies; 
in  fact,  it  is  questionable  how  far  the  economic  development  of 
the  South  could  have  been  promoted  by  legislation.  But  this 
aside.  It  was  one  of  the  inherent  limitations  of  the  convention  that 
it  could  not  legislate,  but  only  recommend  legislation.  No  doubt 
action  by  the  state  legislatures  or  by  Congress  in  accordance  with 
many  of  the  recommendations  of  the  convention  would  have 
greatly  benefited  the  South.  On  the  other  hand,  the  recommen- 
dations were  not  always  well  advised,  were  often  indefinite,  and, 
in  general,  were  not  pressed  upon  the  state  legislatures  and  Con- 
gress with  vigor. 

Defenders  of  the  convention  claimed  for  it  important  results  in 
the  way  of  creating  public  sentiment  and  educating  the  public  in 
regard  to  its  objects.  It  had  aroused  the  public  mind,  they  said, 
to  the  need  of  diversifying  industry,  fostering  commerce,  and  de- 
veloping the  South's  natural  resources.  It  had  been  the  means  of 
disseminating  useful  information,  teaching  the  South  the  extent 
of  her  resources,  and  pointing  the  way  to  their  utilization.  These 
claims  are  true  to  a  degree.  Perhaps  the  judgment  of  the  New 
Orleans  Picayune  was  as  fair  and  as  near  the  mark  as  could  be 
made.  When  the  movement  was  initiated,  it  said,  practical  men 
had  hoped  that  at  last  the  public  would  be  aroused.  To  some 
extent  this  hope  had  been  realized.  The  importance  of  commer- 
cial enterprise  had  been  impressed  upon  the  public  mind.  The 
necessity  of  manufacturing  industry  to  local  independence  was 
generally  acknowledged.  The  certainty  of  the  ultimate  growth  and 
importance  of  Southern  seaports,  aided  by  the  completion  of  pro- 
jected internal  improvements,  was  perceived.  These  results  were 
due  in  part  to  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention.98 

Men  of  the  disunionist  faction,  which  had  dominated  the  later 
sessions  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention,  claimed  that  the 
convention  has  been  a  potent  means  of  uniting  the  South,  consol- 
idating public  opinion,  and  preparing  the  people  for  the  crisis.  It 
had  made  Southern  men  more  extensively  acquainted  with  each 
other,  and  had  shown  that,  while  they  might  disagree  as  to  meas- 
ures, they  were  one  in  purpose.  The  convention  had  also  taught  the 
people  that  the  South  had  resources  sufficient  to  maintain  herself 

"May  20,  1858. 


I5O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [150 

as  an  independent  nation.  According  to  the  Charleston  Mercury, 
one  result  of  the  convention  was  a  knowledge  that  nothing  could 
be  done  in  the  Union  to  change  the  course  of  Southern  commerce; 
and  "To  know  our  condition,  is  the  first  great  requisite  for  alter- 
ing it."99  These  claims  may  be  admitted  with  qualifications.  The 
meetings  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  no  doubt  con- 
tributed to  the  spread  of  disunion  sentiment;  but  it  was  through 
declamation  rather  than  argument.  They  were  conducive  to  pas- 
sion and  resentment  rather  than  clear  thinking  and  sound  judg- 
ment. While  they  brought  men  from  widely  separated  states 
together  in  a  common  cause,  they  also  exposed  to  view  the  divi- 
sions in  Southern  opinion,  the  discordant  elements,  the  local 
jealousies,  and  the  inability  of  too  many  Southern  men  to  rise 
above  petty  politics.  Finally,  they  countenanced  the  agitation  of 
a  question,  the  reopening  of  the  foreign  slave  trade,  which  bade 
fair  to  wreck  the  disunion  cause  altogether.  The  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention  did  not  tend  to  put  the  disunion  cause  upon 
a  high  plane. 

Perhaps  the  chief  significance  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Con- 
vention for  the  student  of  the  period  lies  in  the  fact  that  a  conven- 
tion professing  the  purposes  which  it  did,  met  year  after  year, 
attracted  a  considerable  degree  of  interest,  and,  as  long  as  it  re- 
tained its  original  purpose  of  regenerating  the  South,  commanded 
the  good  will  of  a  great  majority  of  the  Southern  people. 


MMay  16,  1858. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ATTITUDE  TOWARD   PROTECTIVE   LEGISLATION, 
FEDERAL,  STATE,  AND  LOCAL,  1840-1860 

The  attitude  of  the  South  upon  the  tariff  was  determined  in  the 
main  by  the  dominant  economic  interests  of  the  section.  The 
South  was  practically  unanimous  in  opposition  to  the  Tariff  of 
1828.  One  state  went  to  the  extreme  of  declaring  it  and  the  amend- 
ments of  1832  null  and  void.  There  was  much  sympathy  with  this 
action  in  other  Southern  states,  particularly  Georgia.  The  South- 
ern delegation  in  Congress  was  all  but  unanimous  in  voting  for 
the  Compromise  Tariff  of  1833.  At  this  period  the  demand  for 
protection  came  only  from  the  hemp  growers  of  Kentucky  and 
Missouri,  the  sugar  planters  of  Louisiana,  and  mining  interests  in 
Virginia  and  Maryland. 

In  the  early  years  of  its  existence  the  Whig  party  in  the  South 
was  more  strongly  anti-tariff  than  the  Democratic.  As  late  as  1840 
the  party,  because  of  divisions  in  its  ranks,  went  before  the  coun- 
try without  committing  itself  upon  the  subject.  In  1842,  however, 
Southern  Whigs  in  Congress,  with  a  few  exceptions,  were  whipped 
into  line  in  support  of  the  protective  tariff  measure  of  that  year.1 
Again  in  1844,  during  a  presidential  campaign  in  which  Henry 
Clay,  the  champion  of  the  "American  System,"  was  the  Whig 
candidate,  every  Southern  Whig  member  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives but  one  voted  against  the  McKay  bill,  which  was  sup- 
ported by  every  Southern  Democrat  but  one.2  The  action  of  the 
Whigs  may  be  attributed  chiefly  to  political  considerations;  South- 
ern Whig  leaders  felt  the  need  of  a  broadly  national  conservative 
party,  and  recognized  that  it  could  be  built  only  upon  the  basis 
of  compromise.3  In  1842  the  state  of  the  public  treasury  impera- 
tively demanded  an  increase  in  the  revenues,  so  that  the  tariff  of 
that  year  could  be  plausibly  defended  as  a  revenue  measure  offer- 
ing incidental  protection  by  discriminatory  schedules.4  In  1844 

'Cole,  Whig  Party  in  the  South,  98,  99. 

"Cong.  Globe,  28  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  622;  NileS  Register,  LXVI,  177. 

3Cole,  op.  cit.,  loo;  National  Intelligencer,  Jan.  4,  1844,  letter  of  Wm.  A. 
Graham  accepting  the  Whig  nomination  for  governor  of  North  Carolina;  ibid., 
Jan.  13,  letter  from  Wm.  C.  Rives;  ibid.,  Jan.  20,  Feb.  15,  Mar.  7. 

*National  Intelligencer,  Mar.  19,  1844,  address  to  the  people  of  Virginia  on 
the  Tariff  of  1842  by  the  Whig  State  Convention. 


152      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [152 

repeal  could  be  opposed  upon  the  grounds  that  the  revenues  were 
still  required,  and  that  the  tariff  was  working  well.5  Whigs  pointed 
to  the  signs  of  reviving  prosperity  after  the  panic  of  1837  as  evi- 
dence that  the  tariff  was  not  injuring  the  South.  Furthermore, 
they  welcomed  the  cotton  factories  which  were  springing  up  here 
and  there  throughout  the  Southern  states  as  a  justification  of  the 
protective  policy,  and  prophesied  that  soon  the  divergence  of  inter- 
ests between  the  sections,  upon  which  the  division  on  the  tariff 
issue  was  based,  would  cease  to  exist.6  They  charged  the  slow 
progress  of  manufactures  in  the  South  to  the  hostility  of  the 
Democratic  party,  and  declared  the  absence  of  diversified  indus- 
try to  be  the  cause  of  the  declining  prosperity  which  all  deplored.7 
Southern  Democrats  in  Congress  were  unanimous  in  opposing 
the  Tariff  of  1842;  but  the  majority  at  that  time  did  not  hold 
extreme  views.  In  1843  Calhoun  came  forward  as  the  free  trade 
and  reform  candidate  for  the  Democratic  nomination  for  the 
presidency.  Finding  his  chances  poor,  he  wrote,  early  in  1844,  a 
letter  announcing  his  withdrawal.8  The  section  devoted  to  the 
tariff  was  too  extreme  for  his  friends  outside  of  South  Carolina, 
and  at  their  request  was  modified  before  the  letter  was  published.9 
The  McKay  bill,  upon  which  an  attempt  was  made  to  unite  the 
Democratic  party  in  the  summer  of  1844,  was  a  moderately  pro- 
tective measure.10  Although  there  was  considerable  dissatisfaction 
with  it  among  Southern  Democrats,  every  Southern  Democrat  in 
the  House  but  one  voted  for  it.11  When  a  faction  in  South  Caro- 
lina proposed  to  take  the  defeat  of  the  McKay  bill  by  the  defec- 
tion of  twenty-seven  Northern  Democrats  and  the  subsequent 
publication  of  Folk's  "Kane  Letter,"  designed  to  hold  Northern 
tariff  Democrats  in  line,  as  proof  positive  that  no  relief  from  the 

'Cong.  Globe,  28  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  511,  612;  National  Intelligencer,  Aug.  6, 
1844,  quoting  the  Charleston  Courier. 

*Niles'  Register,  LXII,  71;  LXVII,  132,  quoting  the  Vicksburg  Whig;  Cong. 
Globe,  28  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  512,  Berrien,  of  Georgia,  in  the  Senate. 

'See  ante,  pp.  37-41. 

*Works,  VI,  239-54;  National  Intelligencer,  Feb.  3,  1844. 

"''But  I  soon  found,  it  was  altogether  too  high  to  be  sustained  by  a  large 
portion; — much  the  majority;  and  among  them  many  of  the  most  intelligent  and 
devoted."  Calhoun  to  Jas.  Edw.  Calhoun,  Feb.  14,  1844,  Calhoun  Correspond- 
ence; Calhoun  to  Duff  Green,  Jan.  15,  1844. 

KCong.  Globe,  28  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  369,  text  of  the  bill. 

"Ibid.,  28  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  622;  N lies'  Register,  LXVI,  177. 


153]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  153 

burdens  of  protection  could  be  expected  from  the  Democratic 
party,  and  sought  to  put  the  state  again  "upon  its  sovereignty," 
they  received  remarkably  little  sympathy  outside  their  own  state. 
A  correspondent  of  the  Charleston  Mercury  wrote,  "It  is  not  to 
be  disguised  that,  out  of  South  Carolina,  the  whole  tariff  battle 
has  to  be  fought  over."12  The  Walker  tariff,  enacted  in  1846  after 
a  sharp  struggle,  was  by  no  means  a  free  trade  measure.13  Tea 
and  coffee  were  put  on  the  free  list;  raw  materials  used  in  manu- 
factures were  taxed  only  five  per  cent;  duties  on  most  manufac- 
tured articles  were  high  enough  to  afford  considerable  incidental 
protection  to  those  engaged  in  their  manufacture;  whereas  the 
Compromise  tariff  of  1833  had  recognized  the  principle  of  a  hori- 
zontal rate,  the  Walker  tariff  contained  nine  schedules.  Upon  the 
whole,  the  bill  was  satisfactory  to  Southern  Democrats.  Senator 
Haywood,  of  North  Carolina,  however,  resigned  his  seat  rather 
than  vote  for  it.14  He  opposed  it  because  it  abandoned  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  McKay  bill,  upon  which  the  party  had  appealed  to 
the  country;  it  broke  faith  with  Northern  Democrats;  it  would 
not  meet  the  demands  for  revenue  created  by  the  Mexican  War; 
it  did  not  give  sufficient  notice  to  interests  formerly  protected;  and 
together  with  the  independent  treasury  constituted  too  great  a 
revolution  in  the  government's  financial  policy.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  bill  was  not  revolutionary  enough  to  satisfy  some  of  the  free 
trade  members  from  South  Carolina  and  other  cotton  states,  and 
they  voted  for  it  only  because  they  considered  it  a  decided  im- 
provement over  the  Tariff  of  1842,  and  because  nothing  better 
could  be  secured.15 

The  election  of  1844  nac^  cut  down  materially  the  number  of 
Southern  Whigs  in  Congress.  With  two  exceptions  in  the  House 
and  one  in  the  Senate,  they  voted  with  their  colleagues  of  the 
North  against  the  bill.18  After  a  few  years  Southern  Whigs  mani- 
fested a  disposition  to  acquiesce  in  the  continuance  of  the  Walker 
tariff,  and  for  several  years  the  tariff  was  not  an  issue  in  Southern 
politics.  Whigs  contended  that  in  yielding  opposition  to  the  exist- 

"Quoted  in  Niles'  Register,  LXVI,  435. 
"Cf.  Dewey,  Financial  History  of  the  United  States,  249-52. 
"''Address  of  Honorable  Wm.  H.  Haywood,  Jr.,  to  the  people  of  North  Car- 
olina," etc.,  in  National  Intelligencer,  Aug.  19,  1846;  Niles'  Register,  LXX,  410-15. 
"Cong.  Globe,  29  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  1043,  W.  L.  Yancey's  speech  in  the  House. 
"Ibid.,  1053,   1157. 


154     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l    [154 

ing  tariff  they  abandoned  none  of  their  principles;  for,  they  said, 
the  duties  were  high  enough  to  afford  a  fair  degree  of  protection, 
and  protective  principles  were  recognized.  From  time  to  time,  par- 
ticularly from  the  border  states,  there  came  restatements  of  the 
arguments  for  a  protective  tariff  and  reaffirmations  of  the  faith.  In 
1849,  when  the  Southern  people  were  interested  in  the  possibility 
of  developing  cotton  manufactures,  a  suggestion  from  Hamilton 
Smith,  of  Kentucky,  that  the  Constitution  should  be  amended  to 
permit  the  imposition  of  an  export  duty  upon  raw  cotton  was  re- 
ceived in  some  quarters  with  favorable  comment.17 

As  long  as  the  tariff  was  a  party  issue  the  opponents  of  protec- 
tion were  inclined  to  oppose  the  introduction  of  manufacturing. 
Men  too  often  confused  manufactures  and  protection,  and  in  op- 
posing the  latter  were  led  into  hostility  to  the  former.  Calhoun, 
indeed,  always  protested  that  he  was  not  opposed  to  manufactures 
as  such,18  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  other  leaders.  But,  in  gen- 
eral, there  was  a  feeling  that  the  establishment  of  diversified  in- 
dustry would  take  the  edge  from  the  anti-tariff  sentiment.19  The 
advocates  of  diversified  industry  had  to  be  very  chary  in  asking  for 
fostering  legislation,  especially  in  Democratic  states.  They  fre- 
quently gave  the  assurance  that  the  only  thing  needed  in  the  way 
of  encouragement  was  liberal  incorporation  laws  and  freedom  from 
discriminatory  taxation.  It  was  difficult  to  secure  even  the  passage 
of  general  corporation  laws.  Corporations  were  unpopular  in  the 
forties  as  a  result  of  the  experience  of  the  previous  decade  with 
banking  institutions,  in  particular.  In  1847-1848  the  question  of 
granting  liberal  charters  to  corporations  for  manufacturing  pur- 
poses became  a  political  issue  in  Georgia.  Governor  Crawford, 
Whig,  recommended  such  legislation.  He  was  supported  by  the 
Whig  press  and  a  portion  of  the  Democratic  press.  Other  Demo- 

""I  enclose  you  a  letter  of  Ex.  Pres.  Tyler.  The  only  objection  he  makes  to 
my  first  proposition  is  that  it  would  act  as  a  bounty  to  foreign  cotton  growers." 
Smith  to  Hammond,  Mar.  4,  1849,  /.  H,  Hammond  Papers.  Cf.  Smith  to  Ham- 
mond, Aug.  14,  1849;  DeBow's  Review,  VII,  48  ff.  Smith's  suggestion  was  first 
made  in  two  letters  to  the  Louisville  Journal.  The  idea  was  amplified  by  S.  R. 
Cockrill,  a  planter,  of  Tennessee.  DeBow's  Review,  VII,  484-90;  Western  Journal 
and  Civilian,  III,  95-106. 

"Calhoun  to  Abbott  Lawrence,  May  13,  1845,  Calhoun  Correspondence; 
Works,  IV,  183-84. 

"Niles'  Register,  LXVIII,  374  (Aug.  16,  1845),  quoting  Charleston  Mercury. 


155]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  155 

cratic  organs,  however,  were  persuaded  that  Crawford's  sugges- 
tions were  parcel  of  a  design  to  "quench  the  growing  spirit  of 
Democracy  everywhere,"  and  "ride  us  down  by  the  Massachusetts 
policy  of  incorporated  wealth,  under  the  false  plea  of  'developing 
our  resources.'  "20  The  general  incorporation  laws  were  enacted.21 
In  1850,  Governor  Seabrook,  of  South  Carolina,  wrote  William 
Gregg  asking  what  measures  he  considered  necessary  for  the  en- 
couragement of  manufactures.  Gregg  replied  that  he  considered 
unnecessary  and  unwise  any  pecuniary  aid  from  the  state  either 
in  the  form  of  loans  or  otherwise.  The  only  thing  needed  was  the 
"privileges  and  advantages  granted  in  other  states  in  the  use  of 
associated  capital."  He  told  how  cheaply  goods  were  being  made 
in  the  Graniteville  factory;  this  fact,  he  said,  should  "disarm  all 
opposition  from  those  who  fear  that  we  may  ultimately  join  the 
Northern  people  in  a  clamor  for  protection ....  "22 

After  the  Walker  tariff  had  been  in  effect  a  few  years,  and  the 
tariff  controversy  had  abated,  opposition  to  diversified  industry 
on  anti-protectionist  grounds  gave  way  to  a  considerable  extent, 
and  many  anti-tariff  men  and  journals  strongly  supported  the 
movement  to  bring  the  spindles  to  the  cotton  and  to  diversify  in- 
dustry generally.  Typical  of  their  reasoning  was  the  reply  of  the 
Richmond  Enquirer  to  a  Whig  contemporary's  charge  of  incon- 
sistency. Said  the  Enquirer:  "We  have  never  denounced  home 
industry.  We  have,  however,  steadily  denounced  that  hot-bed 
system  of  legislation,  whose  effect  is  to  pamper  one  class  at  the 
expense  of  all  others,  and  especially,  to  foster  the  monopolies  of 
the  North,  which  have  flourished  and  grown  fat  upon  the  tribute 
of  the  South.  It  was  to  benefit  home  manufactures  and  not  to 
destroy  them  that  we  opposed  the  tariff."23  There  was  a  common 
element  in  the  contention  of  the  free  traders  that  the  tariff  ben- 

s°Hopkins  Holsey,  editor  of  the  Athens  [Georgia]  Southern  Banner,  to  Howell 
Cobb,  Dec.  3,  1847,  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XVII,  257. 

22Gregg  to  Seabrook,  May  10,  1850,  Whitemarsh  B.  Seabrook  Papers.  The 
absence  of  general  incorporation  laws  was  not  an  insurmountable  obstacle.  Little 
difficulty  was  experienced  in  getting  special  characters  through  the  legislatures. 
The  session  laws  of  the  various  states  are  full  of  such  special  legislation. 

"July  23,  1850.  James  H.  Hammond,  who  certainly  could  not  be  charged 
with  protective  principles,  carefully  distinguished  between  manufactures  and  the 
protective  system.  DeBoui's  Review,  VIII,  508. 


156     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [156 

efited  New  England  and  Pennsylvania  manufactures  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Southern  agriculture,  and  the  contention  of  those 
who  labored  for  Southern  industrial  independence  that  it  was  the 
manufacture  of  Southern  staples  and  the  sale  to  the  Southern 
people  of  numerous  articles  which  should  be  produced  at  home 
which  strengthened  and  enriched  the  North  while  weakening  and 
impoverishing  the  South.  Both  arguments  represented  one  section 
as  paying  tribute  to  the  other.  This  common  element  made  it  easy 
for  anti-tariff  men  to  support  efforts  being  made  to  diversify 
Southern  industry. 

When  the  desirability  from  both  the  economic  and  political 
viewpoints  of  making  the  South  commercially  and  industrially 
independent  of  the  North  was  understood,  it  was  inevitable  that  a 
demand  should  arise  for  the  protection  of  home  enterprises  against 
Northern  competitors.  A  tariff  might  protect  American  industries 
from  European  competition;  but  more  dangerous  to  the  infant 
industries  of  the  South  than  foreign  competition  were  the  firmly 
established  industries  of  the  North. 

In  fact,  in  the  forties  several  Southern  states  intermittently  dis- 
criminated in  their  tax  laws  in  favor  of  home  manufactures.  The 
laws  of  Virginia  in  1840  and  a  number  of  years  thereafter  ex- 
empted articles  made  within  the  state  from  the  tax  on  sales.24  By 
act  of  1843  South  Carolina  exempted  from  this  tax  "the  products 
of  this  State,  and  the  unmanufactured  products  of  any  of  the 
United  States  or  Territories  thereof."25  Alabama  also,  by  an  act 
of  January  15,  1844,  exempted  articles  manufactured  within  the 
state  from  the  tax  on  sales.26  Taxation  during  the  period  was  very 
light,  and  these  exemptions  amounted  to  little.  There  were  also 
as  many  cases  of  exemptions  of  other  classes  of  property  from 
taxation,  for  example,  farm  implements  and  mechanics'  tools. 

In  the  tariff  debates  of  1844  an^  1846  anti-tariff  men  from  the 
South  referred  to  the  possibility  of  adopting  a  policy  of  state  pro- 
tection. "If  the  protective  policy,"  said  R.  B.  Rhett,  "is  wise  and 
just  with  foreign  nations,  it  must  be  equally  so  between  the  States, 
for  there  is  far  more  intercourse  and  affinity  of  interest  between 
portions  of  the  United  States  and  foreign  nations,  than  between 

MActs  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  1839-184.0,  act  of  Mar.  3,  1840. 
^National  Intelligencer,  Aug.  10,  1844,  "Precept  and  Practice  of  South  Car- 
olina." 

**Acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Alabama,  1843-1844,  p.  65. 


157]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  157 

different  portions  of  the  Union."27  George  McDuffie  threatened, 
in  1844,  to  resign  his  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate,  secure  a 
seat  in  the  South  Carolina  legislature,  and  bring  forward  a  propo- 
sition to  tax  all  manufactured  goods  brought  into  the  state.28 
Seaborn  Jones,  of  Georgia,  also  suggested  that  Southern  states  had 
a  remedy  at  hand  for  unjust  taxation  in  "countervailing  legisla- 
tion, putting  excise  duties  upon  manufactured  articles  which  have 
not  paid  revenue  duty  to  the  Government."29 

During  the  political  crisis  of  1850  and  thereabouts  many  pro- 
posals were  made  in  the  South  for  non-intercourse  with  the  North, 
discriminatory  taxation  of  Northern  manufactures,  exclusion  of 
Northern  ships  from  Southern  harbors,  cessation  of  business  and 
pleasure  trips  to  the  North,  withdrawal  of  subscriptions  to  North- 
ern newspapers,  and  a  number  of  other  measures  of  the  same 
general  character.  They  can  be  attributed  chiefly  to  a  desire  to 
retaliate  against  the  anti-slavery  party,  to  arouse  the  business 
interests  of  the  North  to  the  necessity  of  curbing  the  abolition 
agitation,  and  to  teach  the  North  the  "money  value  of  the  Union"; 
but  it  was  an  added  recommendation  that  these  measures  would 
tend  to  promote  commercial  and  industrial  independence.  J.  C. 
Calhoun  wrote  to  public  men  throughout  the  South  requesting 
their  views  upon  two  lines  of  procedure  for  bringing  the  North  to 
a  sense  of  justice.  One  was  the  assembling  of  a  Southern  conven- 
tion, the  other,  retaliation  against  Northern  states  for  unconstitu- 
tional acts.30  In  one  of  these  letters  he  suggested  that  closing 
Southern  ports  to  Northern  seagoing  vessels  would  promote  direct 
trade  with  Europe.31 

In  the  Nashville  Convention  of  1850,  retaliation  was  supported 
by  a  minority  as  a  proper  measure  to  employ  in  case  the  North 
did  not  grant  justice  to  the  South.32  At  the  adjourned  session, 
November,  1850,  the  Tennessee  delegation  supported  resolutions 

"Cong.  Globe,  28  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  658. 

"NUei  Register,  LXVI,  230. 

""Cong.  Globe,  29  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  991. 

""Wilson  Lumpkin  to  Calhoun,  Nov.  18,  1847;  Joseph  W.  Lesesne  to  Calhoun, 
Sept.  12,  1847;  H.  W.  Conner  to  Calhoun,  Nov.  2,  1848;  Calhoun  to  John  H. 
Means,  Apr.  13,  1849,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 

"Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  698-700,  quotation  from  a  letter  from  Cal- 
houn to  a  member  of  the  Alabama  Legislature,  1847. 

32See  above,  pp.  73-76,  for  a  discussion  of  the  Nashville  Convention. 


158     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [158 

which  accepted  the  recently  adopted  compromise,  outlined  the 
line  of  conduct  Northern  states  would  be  expected  to  pursue  in 
the  future,  and  recommended  that,  in  case  this  line  should  be 
transgressed,  the  people  of  the  South  resort  to  the  "most  rigid 
system  of  commercial  non-intercourse"  with  all  offending  states, 
cities,  and  communities.  The  legislatures  of  the  several  states  were 
invited  to  join  in  the  recommendation.  Counties,  towns,  and 
neighborhoods  were  asked  to  adopt  resolutions  against  purchasing 
or  using  articles  from  offending  Northern  states  or  communities. 
To  make  it  possible  to  follow  these  recommendations,  it  was  fur- 
ther recommended  that  the  states  encourage  their  own  mechanics 
and  manufactures,  and  push  forward  their  internal  improvements 
to  the  seaboard.33 

In  Virginia  such  a  remedy  met  with  considerable  favor.  When, 
after  the  passage  of  the  Compromise  of  1850,  a  disposition  was 
shown  in  the  North,  particularly  in  Boston,  not  to  acquiesce  in  the 
execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  Virginians  took  fire,  and  a 
strong  sentiment  for  retaliation  developed.  The  citizens  of  Prince 
George  County  met  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  Southern  rights 
association.34  Resolutions  were  adopted  pledging  those  present  to 
buy  in  the  North  no  coarse  cottons  or  woolens,  ready  made  cloth- 
ing, carriages,  buggies,  plows,  axes,  harness — in  general,  nothing 
which  could  be  produced  in  the  South  or  obtained  from  Europe. 
The  resolution  furthermore  pledged  them  to  employ  no  Northern 
teachers;  to  withdraw  patronage  from  Northern  schools,  newspa- 
pers, and  books;  to  take  no  pleasure  trips  to  the  North;  to  buy  of 
no  merchant  or  employ  no  mechanic  not  identified  with  the  South; 
and  to  employ  no  vessels  owned  or  commanded  by  a  North- 
ern man  or  manned  by  a  Northern  crew.35  Similar  associations 
were  formed  in  other  counties.36  The  most  important  and  per- 
manent of  the  Southern  rights  associations  in  the  state  was  the 
Central  Southern  Rights  Association  of  Virginia,  which  was  organ- 

"National  Intelligencer,  Nov.  16,  19,  1850;  A.  V.  Brown,  Speeches,  Congres- 
sional and  Political,  etc.,  318-21  (text  of  the  resolutions );DuBose,  Life  and  Times 
of  Yancey,  248;  Speech  of  the  Hon.  Langdon  Cheves  in  the  Nashville  Conven- 
tion, p.  20. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  15,  1850. 

"Ibid.,  Nov.  20,  Dec.  10,  1850. 

*Ibid.,  Dec.  31,  1850. 


159]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  159 

ized  in  Richmond  in  December,  1850,"  and  continued  in  existence 
until  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War.  Some  of  the  ablest  and  most 
prominent  men  of  Richmond  and  the  state  at  large  were  members. 
The  members  were  pledged  to  "use  all  lawful  and  constitutional 
means  in  our  power  to  arrest  further  aggressions  of  the  non-slave- 
holding  states,"  and  to  appeal  to  the  legislature  of  the  state  to 
enact  such  laws  as  were  "prudent  and  constitutional  for  effecting, 
ultimately,  commercial  independence"  of  such  states  as  by  laws 
or  otherwise  sought  to  prevent  the  execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
law.38  The  first  petition  addressed  by  the  association  to  the  State 
Legislature  requested  the  passage  of  excise  tax  laws  discriminating 
in  favor  of  articles  of  Virginia  manufacture  or  of  direct  importa- 
tion from  abroad.  Such  taxation  was  believed  to  be  the  most 
certain  means  of  securing  ultimately  Virginia's  commercial  inde- 
pendence and  the  safety  of  her  property  and  institutions.39 

A  year  earlier  Governor  Floyd  had  suggested  discriminatory 
taxation  in  a  special  message  to  the  General  Assembly.40  In  No- 
vember, 1850,  he  introduced  the  subject  in  the  state  Constitutional 
Convention.41  In  his  last  message  to  the  General  Assembly,  shortly 
after,  he  again  recommended  it.42  As  a  member  of  the  Legislature 
he  championed  a  bill  to  impose  a  tax  of  five  per  cent  on  all  goods 
brought  into  the  state  for  sale  except  direct  imports.43  The  Dem- 
ocratic press  of  the  state  generally  supported  the  plan  of  discrim- 
inatory taxation.44  In  the  opinion  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  it 
would  check  the  abolition  movement  in  the  North,  "give  tone  and 
strength  to  Southern  manufactures,  commerce  and  all  the  interests 
of  the  South,"  and  ward  off  disunion.45  The  Enquirer  charged  the 
Whigs  with  inconsistency  in  opposing  Floyd's  proposal  while  ad- 
vocating a  higher  tariff.46  The  conservative  press  generally  op- 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  10,   13,  17,  24,  31,   1850. 

^Virginia  Documents,  1850-1851,  doc.  LX,  "Petition  of  the  Central  Southern 
Rights  Association  of  Virginia,  and  Accompanying  Documents,"  p.  5. 
wlbid.,  doc.  LX;  DeBow's  Review,  XII,  109. 
"Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  15,  1850. 
"Ibid.,  Nov.  19,  1850. 

°Ibid.,  Dec.  3,  1850;  Virginia  Documents,  1850-1851,  doc.  I. 
"Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan.  31,  1851. 

"Ibid.,  Nov.  15,  22,  1850,  quoting  a  number  of  Virginia  newspapers. 
"Dec.  13,  1850. 
"Dec.  17,  1850. 


l6o     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [l6o 

posed  the  plan.47  They  denounced  it  as  calculated  to  lead  to  a 
dismemberment  of  the  Union  and  as  "subversive  of  the  true  in- 
terests of  the  Southern  states."  In  the  North  it  would  not  injure 
the  abolitionists  but  rather  the  friends  of  the  South;  for  the 
former  were  not  engaged  in  commerce.  It  was  said  to  be  unconsti- 
tutional; the  National  Intelligencer  called  it  "another  form  of  nulli- 
fication."48 In  opposing  Floyd's  proposal  the  Whigs  resorted  to 
good  free  trade  arguments :  Virginia  must  depend  upon  the  North 
for  materials  with  which  to  construct  her  internal  improvements; 
she  could  not  rely  upon  her  own  resources.  Were  discriminatory 
taxation  imposed,  the  North  would  lose  a  market,  and  both  sec- 
tions would  be  sacrificed  to  the  cupidity  of  England.  The  tax 
would  be  paid  by  the  consumer.49  The  Whigs  were  not,  of  course, 
animated  by  any  feeling  of  hostility  to  the  cause  of  Southern  com- 
mercial and  industrial  independence. 

Senator  Berrien,  of  Georgia,  a  Whig,  in  public  speeches  ex- 
pressed views  similar  to  those  of  Governor  Floyd.  At  Macon  he 
was  reported  to  have  said  that  he  did  not  wish  the  Georgia  Con- 
vention to  propose  non-intercourse  nor  an  import  tax,  as  both 
would  be  unconstitutional;  but  he  thought  it  best  to  recommend  a 
measure  by  which  Northern  goods,  after  they  had  arrived  in 
Georgia  and  had  been  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  merchants, 
should  be  charged  with  a  high  and  discriminatory  tax.  Such  a 
measure  would  encourage  Georgia  manufactures,  greatly  abridge 
importations  of  Northern  goods,  and  arouse  the  North  to  a  sense 
of  the  power  of  the  South  to  protect  herself.50  In  Alabama,  South- 
ern rights  associations  were  formed,  and  resolutions  adopted 
similar  to  those  adopted  by  the  associations  in  Virginia.51  In 
Mississippi,  members  of  the  Southern  rights  party  expressed  them- 
selves in  favor  of  excluding  by  legislative  enactment  goods  manu- 
factured north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.52 

In  South  Carolina,  after  the  passage  of  the  Compromise  of  1850, 
public  opinion  was,  as  we  have  seen,  widely  divided  in  regard  to 

"Richmond  Whig,  Jan.  2,  22,  Feb.  12,  1851;  National  Intelligencer,  Dec.  9, 
12,  17,  28,  1850. 

*T)ec.  17,  1850,  editorial. 

"Richmond  Whig,  Jan.  2,  22,  1851. 

""Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  15,  1850. 

"Ibid.,  Nov.  22,  1850;  DeBow's  Industrial  Resources,  III,   122. 

"'Cong.  Globe,  32  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  Appx.  284. 


l6l]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  l6l 

the  proper  policy  to  be  pursued.  In  the  hope  of  unifying  the 
state,  J.  H.  Hammond  brought  forward  a  "Plan  of  State  Action," 
which,  although  not  adopted,  met  with  considerable  favor.63  He 
proposed  that  the  State  Convention  declare  the  right  of  secession; 
prohibit  citizens  from  holding  Federal  offices  outside  the  state; 
refuse  to  accept  Federal  appropriations  for  any  purpose;  impose 
a  double  tax  upon  the  property  of  non-residents;  "as  far  as  it 
constitutionally  may,"  impose  taxes  upon  manufactures  of  non- 
slaveholding  states;  encourage  manufactures  by  granting  liberal 
charters  to  companies;  encourage  agriculture;  and  with  state  funds 
"aid  in  the  establishment  of  direct  commercial  intercourse  with 
foreign  nations,  by  steamships  adopted  to  purposes  of  war,  in 
case  of  need."  Already  Governor  Seabrook  had  recommended  the 
encouragement  of  manufactures  by  liberal  corporation  laws54  and 
the  Legislature  had  discussed  a  proposal  to  levy  discriminatory 
taxation  upon  Northern  goods.55 

A  bill  was  introduced  in  the  North  Carolina  Legislature,  No- 
vember, 1850,  to  impose  a  tax  of  ten  per  cent  upon  goods  brought 
into  the  state  from  non-slaveholding  states  after  January  i,  i852.56 
The  House  of  Commons  adopted  resolutions  introduced  by  a  Whig 
member  which  declared57  that  ( I )  North  Carolina  was  absolved  by 
the  abolition  agitation  from  further  obligation  to  protect  Northern 
manufactures  by  a  tariff;  (2)  if  North  Carolina  industries  re- 
quired protection,  it  could  be  "better  effected  by  State  than  by 
Congressional  Legislation;"  (3)  the  Walker  tariff  was  high  enough; 
(4)  and  requested  that  members  of  Congress  from  North  Carolina 
vote  against  any  increase.  These  resolutions  were  adopted  by 
votes  of  105-2,  62-32,  75-18,  and  84-8  respectively,  Whigs  as  well 
as  Democrats  composing  the  majorities.68  Even  before  these  reso- 

**/.  H.  Hammond  Papers,  No.  22,198,  a  broadside  printed  by  the  Charleston 
Mercury,  accompanied  by  a  note  to  the  editors,  dated  April  29,  1851;  Hammond 
to  Wm.  Gilmore  Simms,  April  29,  1851;  A.  P.  Aldrich  to  Hammond,  May  16, 
Nov.  10;  Hammond  to  Simms,  May  29,  July  i;  Maxcy  Gregg  to  Hammond, 
Nov.  14,  1851.  Edmund  Ruffin  to  Hammond,  Nov.  13,  1851. 

^Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  3,  1850. 

"National  Intelligencer,  Dec.  9,  12,  1850. 

""Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  29,  1850. 

"Richmond  Whig,  Jan.  17,  1851. 

**Cong.  Globe,  31  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  Appx.  206,  Thomas  L.  Clingman,  in  the 
House,  Feb.  15,  1851. 


l62      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1 86 1    [l62 

lutions  had  been  adopted,  Southern  Whig  members  of  Congress, 
particularly  from  North  Carolina,  had  defeated  attempts  made  in 
the  first  session  of  the  Thirty -first  Congress  to  revise  the  tariff 
upward  in  the  interest,  chiefly,  of  the  Pennsylvania  iron  industry.59 

The  action  of  the  North  Carolina  Whigs  was  indicative  of  a 
marked  falling  off  in  tariff  sentiment  in  the  South.  So  staunch  a 
protectionist  organ  as  the  Richmond  Whig  wavered  in  its  faith, 
and  warned  manufacturers  that  they  need  not  expect  further  pro- 
tection.60 For  several  years  after  the  attempt  of  the  iron  interest 
in  1850  to  secure  higher  duties,  the  tariff  question  was  not  before 
Congress  or  the  country  except  for  occasional  attempts  of  Southern 
and  Western  congressmen  to  secure  the  remittance  or  repeal  of 
the  duty  on  railroad  iron.  North  as  well  as  South  came  to  ac- 
quiesce in  the  Walker  tariff,  with  the  exception,  in  the  South,  of 
men  of  the  South  Carolina  school,  who  professed  to  find  the  Tariff 
of  1846  oppressive,  just  as  they  had  found  that  of  1842  to  be.61 

The  Walker  tariff,  however,  proved  an  excellent  revenue  pro- 
ducing measure,  receipts  exceeded  expenditures,  and  an  accumu- 
lating surplus  in  the  treasury  finally  forced  Congress  to  undertake 
revision.  A  late  attempt  in  the  second  session  of  the  Thirty-third 
Congress,  March,  1855,  failed;62  but  it  was  generally  understood 
that  the  next  Congress  must  act.  Contemporaneously,  agitation 
was  started  by  extreme  anti-tariff  men  in  the  South  for  the  aban- 
donment of  the  tariff  system  altogether  and  the  substitution  of 
direct  taxation.  In  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention,  Savan- 
nah, December,  1856,  resolutions  were  reported  which  pronounced 
the  tariff  to  be  the  cause  of  the  decline  of  Southern  commerce  and 
declared  for  absolute  free  trade  and  direct  taxation.63  The  reso- 
lutions were  not  adopted,  but  were  referred  to  a  committee  in- 
structed to  report  at  the  next  convention. 

'"Cong.  Globe,  31  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  1728,  1812,  1951;  ibid.,  31  Cong.,  2  Sess., 
Appx.  206,  Clingman's  explanation  of  the  action  of  North  Carolina  men. 

""Jan.  17,  Feb.  12,  Mar.  19,  21,  and  31,  1851. 

61Cong.  Globe,  32  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  35,  Woodward,  of  South  Carolina,  in  the 
House,  Dec.  10,  1852. 

62The  House  attached  sections  reducing  the  tariff  as  a  rider  to  the  Civil  and 
Diplomatic  bill,  the  Senate  struck  them  out.  Ibid.,  33  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  914,  1088, 
1178. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  92. 


163]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  163 

The  Tariff  of  1857  was  passed  after  short  and  rather  desultory 
debates  in  the  House  and  Senate.  The  debates  contained  remark- 
ably little  of  a  sectional  nature,  and  the  only  interests  greatly  dis- 
satisfied were  the  iron  manufacturers  and  the  wool  growers.  The 
bill  as  finally  passed  was  written  by  Senator  Hunter,  of  Virginia. 
As  did  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  Guthrie,  Hunter  took  a  fairly 
liberal  attitude  toward  the  manufacturing  interests.64  The  rates 
were  somewhat  lower  than  those  of  the  Walker  tariff.  In  one  re- 
spect, however,  the  bill  was  more  in  accord  with  protective  prin- 
ciples than  the  former  act;  it  provided  for  free  raw  materials  where 
the  demand  was  for  manufactures.  Cotton  manufactures  were 
favored  by  leaving  the  duties  nearly  as  high  as  those  of  the  Tariff 
of  1846.  Some  objection  was  raised  by  Southern  members  to  the 
enlarged  free  list.  The  only  out-and-out  free  trade  views  expressed 
came  from  South  Carolina  men.  Senator  A.  P.  Butler  said,  "Cotton 
would  rise  to  twenty  cents  tomorrow ...  if  we  had  no  tariff."65 
Representative  W.  W.  Boyce,  of  Charleston,  declared  for  free 
trade  and  direct  taxation.66  Only  two  Southern  congressmen 
voted  against  the  bill.67  Outside  Congress  there  was  little  dissatis- 
faction except  among  the  ultras.  DeBow,  for  example,  was  at  first 
inclined  to  approve  the  measure  as  a  step  in  the  right  direction, 
but  later  found  that  "the  manufacturers  have  again  had  a  victory 
in  the  adroit  combinations  made."68 

The  free  trade  faction  in  the  South  followed  up  this  partial  vic- 
tory over  protection  by  a  general  attack  against  every  form  of 
protection  and  privilege  granted  by  the  Federal  government.  In 
the  Southern  Commercial  Convention,  at  Knoxville,  August,  1857, 
W.  W.  Boyce  again  brought  forward  the  proposal  for  free  trade 
and  direct  taxation.  A  committee  reported  it  adversely,  while  the 
debate  showed  sharp  divisions  of  opinion.69  A  Virginia  delegate 
offered  resolutions  declaring  that  the  merchant  vessels  of  foreign 
nations  should  be  admitted  to  the  United  States  coasting  trade 

"Cong.  Globe,  34  Cong.,  3  Sess.,  Appx.  328  ff.,  speech  in  the  Senate,  Feb.  26, 
1857;  ibid.,  36  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  3188. 

KIbid.,  34  Cong.,  3  Sess.,  Appx.  350. 

"Ibid.,  34  Cong.,  3  Sess.,  Appx.  215  ff. 

"Ibid.,  34  Cong.,  3  Sess.,  971;  Appx.  358  (votes  in  the  House  and  Senate). 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  381,  554. 

"Ibid.,  XXIII,  305,  309,  310-15. 


164     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, l84<>l86l    [164 

upon  the  same  footing  as  our  own.70  Roger  A.  Pryor,  of  Virginia, 
secured  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  memorialize  Congress 
for  the  repeal  of  the  fishing  bounties,  which  benefited  New  Eng- 
land particularly.71  In  the  next  session  of  Congress  W.  W.  Boyce 
secured  the  appointment  of  a  select  committee  of  the  House  to 
inquire  into  and  report  upon  a  reduction  of  the  expenditures  of 
the  government,  the  navigation  laws,  the  existing  duties  on  im- 
ports, and  a  resort  exclusively  to  internal  taxation.72  As  chairman 
of  the  committee,  Boyce  brought  in  an  able  and  elaborate  report, 
presenting  all  the  free  trade  arguments.73  Senator  C.  C.  Clay,  of 
Alabama,  attacked  the  fishing  bounties,  and  secured  the  passage 
through  the  Senate,  1858,  of  a  bill  repealing  them.74  He  regarded 
this  action  as  but  the  initial  step  to  the  repeal  of  the  "ship-build- 
ing, coast-wise  trade,  and  other  monopolies  now  enjoyed  by  the 
North  to  the  wrong  of  the  South."75  The  policy  entered  upon  dur- 
ing the  preceding  decade  of  subsidizing  steamship  lines  by  making 
liberal  contracts  for  carrying  the  mails  was  repeatedly  attacked  by 
Southern  Democrats  led  by  Senator  Hunter,  of  Virginia.76  After 
June  14,  1858,  no  new  contracts  were  made;  finally,  on  October 
I,  1859,  notice  was  given  of  complete  abrogation  of  existing  con- 
.  tracts.77 

The  Tariff  of  1857  had  been  in  operation  but  a  few  months  when 
the  financial  crash  of  that  year  occurred.  Imports  fell  off  greatly, 
and  shortly  the  treasury  was  confronted  by  a  deficit.  It  soon  be- 

™DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  306,  Fuqua,  of  Virginia. 

"Ibid.,  XXIII,  307.  The  subject  was  not  a  new  one.  It  had  been  brought 
up  in  previous  commercial  conventions,  and  time  and  again  in  Congress.  See, 
e.  g.,  ibid.,  XVII,  204,  Ruffin  in  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  in  Charles- 
ton, 1854. 

"Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  509. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXV,  1-27;  Charleston  Mercury,  June  i,  4,  1858. 

"Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  1930  ff.,  Clay's  speech,  May  4,  1858;  ibid., 
35  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  2239,  vote  upon  passage  of  the  bill. 

"C.  C.  Clay  to  VVm.  Burwell,  May  7,  1858,  Wm.  M.  Burwell  Letters.  Cf. 
DuBose,  Life  and  Times  of  W.  L.  Yancey,  368  ff.,  quoting  letter  from  Yancey 
to  Thomas  J.  Orme,  May  22,  1858. 

"Hunter's  most  famous  speech  on  the  subject  is  in  Cong.  Globe,  32  Cong., 
i  Sess.,  1147  ff.  (April  21,  1852).  He  termed  the  policy  the  adoption  of  the 
"protective  system  in  one  of  its  very  worst  forms." 

"Bates,  American  Navigation:  the  Political  History  of  Its  Rise  and  Ruin, 
346  (a  table  of  mail  subsidy  legislation);  U.  S.  Statutes  at  Large,  Act  of  June 
14,  1858. 


165]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  165 

came  apparent  that  another  revision  of  the  tariff  would  have  to 
be  undertaken.  The  discussion  then  provoked  revealed  that  in 
certain  quarters  of  the  South  the  same  feeling  against  the  tariff 
existed  as  had  been  displayed  in  1832  and  1844.  After  the  Kansas 
question  had  been  temporarily  put  at  rest  in  the  spring  of  1858 
by  the  passage  of  the  English  Bill,  Senator  Hammond  told  his 
constituents  that  the  state  could  now  remain  in  the  Union  "with 
honor."  He  gave  warning,  however,  that  an  attempt  would  be 
made  in  the  next  session  of  Congress  to  increase  the  tariff,  and 
declared  that  the  "plantation  states  should  discard  any  govern- 
ment" which  adopted  protection.  "Unequal  taxation  is,  after 
all,  what  we  have  most  to  fear  in  this  Union."78  A.  P.  Calhoun,  in 
an  address  in  which  he  advocated  secession,  also  put  the  tariff 
foremost  among  the  grievances  of  the  South.79  In  Georgia  there 
was  a  group  of  free  traders,  led  by  John  A.  Jones,  who  were  as 
violent  in  their  opposition  to  the  tariff  as  were  those  of  South 
Carolina.  The  Montgomery  Daily  Confederation  thought  free 
trade  had  already  "culminated  into  universal  sanction  and  adop- 
tion" in  the  Southern  states,  and  pronounced  "woe  to  the  states- 
man that  should  attempt  to  lend  himself  to  any  move  to  restore" 
the  protective  system.80 

President  Buchanan  in  his  annual  message,  1858,  and  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  Cobb  in  his  annual  report,  both  recommended  a 
revision  of  the  tariff;  but  the  Democratic  caucus  considered  it 
inexpedient  to  make  any  changes  in  the  tariff  during  the  session.81 
In  the  next  Congress,  the  Thirty-sixth,  the  Republicans  controlled 
the  House.  Justin  S.  Morrill,  of  Vermont,  reported  a  bill  whose 
level  of  rates  was  about  equal  to  that  of  the  Tariff  of  1846,  al- 
though it  was  constructed  more  in  accord  with  protective  prin- 
ciples.82 The  bill  was  passed  over  the  opposition  of  the 
Democrats.83  There  was  little  sectionalism  in  the  debates;  few 
Southern  men  spoke  upon  the  bill.  Several  Southern  Democrats 

"Charleston  Mercury,  July  22,  1858,  Feb.  3,  1859. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXVI,  476. 

'"Feb.  I,  1859. 

"Montgomery  Daily  Confederation,  Feb.  3,  1859. 

siCong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  1830  ff. 

"Ibid.,  2056. 


l66     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1 86 1    [l66 

declared  their  willingness  to  restore  the  Tariff  of  i846.84  The 
Democratic  Senate  postponed  action  upon  the  bill  until  the  short 
session,  1860-1861,  when,  after  the  secession  of  several  Southern 
states  had  withdrawn  a  number  of  senators  from  the  opposition,  it 
was  passed. 

On  the  very  eve  of  the  Civil  War,  however,  there  still  lingered 
in  some  quarters  of  the  South  a  sentiment  for  a  protective  tariff. 
The  Louisiana  sugar  planters  persistently  demanded  protection.88 
In  Virginia,  Tennessee,  and  North  Carolina  there  were  interests 
which  asked  for  governmental  encouragement.  Even  in  South 
Carolina  such  men  as  Richard  Yeadon,  of  the  Charleston  Courier, 
and  William  Gregg  retained  their  tariff  views  to  the  end.86  And 
in  general,  it  is  safe  to  say,  the  South  as  a  whole  was  not  com- 
mitted to  free  trade,  but  rather  to  a  tariff  for  revenue  with  inci- 
dental protection.  Many  Democratic  leaders  admitted  the 
propriety  of  discrimination  in  duties  within  the  revenue  limit. 
Only  in  South  Carolina,  if,  indeed,  in  any  state,  would  a  majority 
have  been  willing  to  substitute  internal  taxation  for  duties  upon 
imports. 

Nor  can  the  general  opposition  to  a  high  tariff,  the  agitation  for 
free  trade,  and  the  concerted  attack  upon  monopolies,  bounties, 
and  special  privileges  of  all  kinds  be  taken  as  proof  that  the 
doctrine  of  laissez  faire  had  come  to  prevail  in  the  South  more 
than  elsewhere.  A  protective  tariff  was  opposed  not  only  because 
it  fostered  manufactures  at  the  expense  of  the  planting  interests, 
but  also  because  the  manufactures  were  in  the  North.  Likewise, 
the  fishing  bounties  were  opposed  not  only  because  they  were 
bounties,  but  also  because  they  directly  benefited  only  New  Eng- 
land. The  navigation  laws  were  objectionable  to  Southern  men 
not  only  because  they  enhanced  freight  rates  in  coastwise  trade, 
but  also  because  the  shipping  industry  which  profited  thereby  was 
almost  a  monopoly  of  the  North.  If  we  turn  our  attention  to  local 
policies,  we  find  about  as  much  disposition  in  the  South  as  else- 
where to  attempt  by  legislative  enactments  to  modify  the  courses 
capital  and  labor  might  take. 

"Cong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  I   Sess.,  3187,  Jefferson  Davis  in  the  Senate.    Cf. 
Charleston  Mercury,  Feb.  26,  1859,  quoting  Rep.  Taylor  of  Louisiana. 
"De  Bow's  Review,  XXII,  320-25,  433-36;  XXVI,  481. 
**Ibid.,  XXX,  102  f.,  for  an  expression  of  Gregg's  views. 


167]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  1 67 

The  policy  of  encouraging  manufactures  and  direct  trade  by 
levying  discriminatory  taxes  upon  goods  manufactured  in  the  non- 
slaveholding  states  and  upon  articles  imported  from  foreign  coun- 
tries through  Northern  ports,  or  by  offering  bounties  or  granting 
exemption  from  taxation  to  home  industries,  was  kept  under  ad- 
visement in  the  South  until  secession.  In  the  Southern  Commercial 
Convention  in  Charleston,  1854,  General  Tilghman  offered  in 
behalf  of  the  Maryland  delegation  a  resolution  that  the  legislatures 
of  the  Southern  states  should  encourage  manufactures  and  com- 
merce "by  the  granting  of  bounties  and  all  such  other  benefits  and 
privileges  as  the  powers  reserved  and  possessed  by  the  States  may 
permit."97  His  arguments  were  strikingly  similar  to  those  which 
might  be  employed  in  the  advocacy  of  a  protective  tariff.  The  con- 
vention appointed  a  committee  upon  the  subject  of  promoting 
"Southern  and  Western  manufactures  and  mining  operations," 
and  recommended  the  encouragement  of  direct  trade  either  by 
exempting  the  goods  imported  from  taxation  or  by  allowing  direct 
importers  an  equivalent  drawback  or  bounty.88  D.  H.  London, 
president  of  the  Central  Southern  Rights  Association  of  Virginia 
thought:  "If  there  were  absolute  free  trade,  Southern  ports  would 
soon  surpass  the  North,  not  only  in  commerce  but  in  industry  and 
arts."  Since,  however,  it  was  impossible  to  secure  free  trade,  he 
thought  the  state  legislatures  should  place  an  excise  tax  upon  in- 
direct imports.89 

In  Georgia,  in  1854,  a  proposal  was  being  discussed  to  exempt 
from  taxation  property  of  corporations  engaged  in  manufactur- 
ing.90 At  the  same  time,  Nelson  Tift,  of  the  Albany  Patriot,  and 
others  were  advocating  as  a  purely  retaliatory  measure  the  imposi- 
tion of  a  tax  of  one  hundred  per  cent  upon  the  sale  of  goods  from 
states  which  did  not  observe  their  constitutional  obligations.91  A 
Democratic  party  convention,  1855,  unanimously  adopted  resolu- 
tions requesting  the  Legislature  to  enact  effective  retaliatory 
measures.92  Somewhat  different  was  the  proposal  submitted  by 

"DeBow's  Review,  XVII,  255. 

™Ibid.,  XVII,  254,  258. 

""Charleston  Courier,  Mar.  16,  1854,  D.  H.  London  to  F.  W.  Connor. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XVII,  257. 

nlbid.,  XVII,  399;  Savannah  Republican,  Dec.  25,  1856. 

"Phillips,  Georgia  and  State  Rights,  183. 


l68      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [l68 

Robert  Toombs  to  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  in 
Savannah  the  following  year.93  He  proposed  to  secure  direct  trade 
"by  imposing  a  State  tax  of — per  cent,  ad  valorem  upon  all  goods, 
wares,  and  merchandise  offered  for  sale  within  the  State,  other 
than  those  which  shall  be  imported  from  foreign  countries."  The 
rate  should  be  high  enough  to  prevent  all  indirect  importations  of 
foreign  merchandise  and  "to  raise  sufficient  revenue  for  all  the 
wants  of  the  State,  without  imposing  upon  the  people  any  capita- 
tion or  other  direct  tax  whatever."  "Levy  our  taxes  on  con- 
sumption," he  said;  "it  can  be  more  easily  paid;  we  shall  then 
fill  our  treasury  to  the  extent  of  our  wants,  protect  ourselves 
against  the  unjust  legislation  of  our  sister  States,  bring  direct 
trade  to  our  ports,  give  profitable  employment  to  our  capital  and 
labor,  educate  our  people,  develop  all  our  resources,  and  build  up 
great,  powerful,  and  prosperous  commonwealths,  able  to  protect 
the  people  from  all  dangers  from  within  and  from  without."  Such 
a  tax,  with  the  exemption  of  direct  imports,  would  be  constitution- 
al, he  said,  and  could  be  easily  collected.  This  plan,  it  will  be 
observed,  did  not  call  for  discriminatory  taxation  upon  sales  of 
Northern  made  goods;  it  would  have  operated  as  hardly  upon 
Georgia  manufactures  as  upon  those  of  New  England.  Toomb's 
proposal  was  not  widely  endorsed.94 

The  Southern  Commercial  Convention  which  met  at  Richmond, 
January,  1856,  adopted  by  acclamation  a  resolution  recommending 
the  release  of  direct  importations  from  license  fees.95  About  the 
same  time  ex-Governor  Floyd  introduced  a  bill  in  the  Virginia 
House  of  Delegates  providing  for  an  excise  tax  upon  goods 
brought  into  the  state  for  sale  except  goods  directly  imported  from 
abroad.96  Attacks  were  made  upon  the  merchants'  license  tax  and 
the  tax  on  sales,  which  were  imposed  both  by  the  state  and  mu- 
nicipal governments.97  These  taxes  were  said  to  act  as  bounties  to 
induce  retail  merchants  to  go  outside  the  state  to  purchase  their 
stocks;  for  if  they  bought  of  home  jobbers  who,  in  turn,  bought 

*3DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  102  ff.   The  latter  was  headed,  Washington,  Ga., 
Dec.  6,  1856. 

"Savannah  Republican,  Dec.  22,  25,   1856,  quoting  other  journals. 

mDe Bow's  Review,  XX,  351. 

""Richmond  Enquirer,  Feb.   16,  20,  Mar.  14,  1856. 

"Ibid.,  March  2,  5,  1856,  letters  signed  "Junius." 


169]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  169 

of  Virginia  importers,  the  consumers  paid  the  taxes  three  times, 
whereas  if  the  retailers  bought  in  states  where  no  such  taxes  were 
levied,  the  consumers  paid  the  taxes  only  once.98  The  Finance 
Committee  of  the  House  of  Delegates  was  dominated  by  the  plant- 
ing interests  of  the  tidewater  region,  and  proposals  for  tax  reform 
met  little  favor."  However,  a  provision  was  included  in  the  tax 
bill  of  1856  allowing  the  importing  merchant  a  deduction  from  the 
amount  of  sales  on  which  he  paid  license  tax  equal  to  the  value  of 
the  goods  imported  by  him  plus  the  duties  paid  upon  them.100 
This  was  not  a  very  considerable  concession;  for  a  sales  tax  upon 
imported  goods  sold  in  the  original  packages  was  unconstitu- 
tional.101 . 

After  the  John  Brown  Raid  at  Harper's  Ferry,  October,  1859, 
the  Central  Southern  Rights  Association  of  Virginia  became  active 
again.102  In  a  memorial  to  the  General  Assembly  it  presented 
commercial  independence  as  the  "means  of  remedy  and  redress" 
for  the  grievances  of  the  South.  The  memorialists  asked  that  the 
pilot  fees  be  decreased  upon  vessels  owned  in  Virginia  and  upon 
vessels  from  foreign  nations  and  increased  upon  Northern  vessels 
engaged  in  the  coasting  trade.  They  would  give  bounties  for 
direct  importations  of  goods  most  needed  within  the  state.  They 
recommended  that  importing  merchants  be  reimbursed  for  duties 
paid  and  exempted  altogether  from  the  license  tax.103  In  response 
to  the  memorial  the  House  of  Delegates  passed  a  bill  exempting 
direct  importations  from  all  sales  taxes.  It  was  defeated  in  the 
Senate,  largely  by  the  votes  of  members  from  districts  having  the 
largest  slave  populations.104  An  act  of  February  29, 1860,  exempted 

™De Bow's  Review,  XX,  623;  ibid.,  XXVIII,  316,  argument  of  D.  H.  Lon- 
don, president  of  the  Central  Southern  Rights  Association  of  Virginia,  before 
the  General  Assembly. 

"Richmond  Enquirer,  Feb.  20,  21,  1856,  Report  of  the  Finance  Committee, 
Muscoe  R.  H.  Garnett,  Chairman. 

100 Acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  1855-1856,  act  of  Jan.  5,  1856.  A 
similar  provision  was  in  the  tax  act  of  Mar.  30,  1860. 

10IBrown  vs.  Maryland,  12  Wheaton,  419;  DeBow's  Review,  XXVIII,  178. 

""Ibid.,  XXVIII,  356-7. 

™Ibid.,  XXVIII,  173-182.  Cf.  ibid.,  XXVIII,  314-324,  "Argument  of  D. 
H.  London  before  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia";  ibid.,  XXIX,  466-88,  "Com- 
mercial, Agricultural,  and  Intellectual  Independence  of  the  South,"  by  D.  H. 
London. 

™Ibid.,  XXIX,  471,  472. 


I7O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [170 

vessels  four-fifths  owned  in  Virginia  from  the  payment  of  pilot 
fees.105  But  so  difficult  was  it  to  secure  fostering  legislation  that 
an  enactment  ambitiously  entitled  an  "Act  to  Encourage  Direct 
Foreign  Trade"  provided  only  for  the  exemption  of  Virginia  flour 
from  the  small  inspection  fees  if  exported  in  ships  four-fifths  owned 
in  Virginia.106 

In  other  Southern  states,  legislation  similar  to  that  proposed  in 
Georgia  and  Virginia  was  advocated.  Louisiana,  by  act  of  the 
Legislature,  March  18,  1852,  offered  a  bonus  of  five  dollars  per 
ton  for  every  ship  of  over  one  hundred  tons  built  in  the  state.107 
There  was  sentiment  in  the  state  for  the  extension  of  aid  in  a 
similar  manner  to  other  industries.108  The  Alabama  Legislature 
exempted  the  sale  of  all  foreign  goods  directly  imported  into  the 
Southern  states  from  any  description  of  state,  county,  or  city  tax- 
ation.109 South  Carolina  exempted  goods  imported  in  vessels 
owned  in  the  state  from  taxation  while  in  the  hands  of  the  im- 
porters.110 In  Mississippi  discriminatory  taxation  was  advocated 
both  as  a  means  of  retaliation  against  Northern  aggression  and  of 
promoting  direct  trade  and  developing  manufactures.111  In  Ten- 
nessee there  was  discussion  of  the  desirability  of  liberalizing  the 
tax  laws.112-  Tennessee  and  South  Carolina  appropriated  money 
in  aid  of  mechanics'  institutes  whose  purpose  was  to  encourage 
manufactures  and  the  mechanic  arts.113  The  legislatures  of  North 
Carolina,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Arkansas  took  a  first  step 
toward  developing  the  mineral  resources  of  those  states  by  pro- 
viding for  geological  surveys.114 


of  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  1859-1860,  p.  145. 

™Ibid.,  167,  act  of  Mar.  31,  1860. 

™Acts  of  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Louisiana,  etc.  129.  The  act  was 
somewhat  modified  three  years  later.  Act  of  Mar.  15,  1855. 

108New  Orleans  Picayune,  Jan.  17,  1858;  Kettell,  Southern  Wealth  and  North- 
ern Profits,  66.  . 

lwDeBow's  Review,  XXVIII,  492. 

""Richmond  Enquirer,  Mar.  24,  1854,  Mar.  5,  1856. 

™DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  233-6,  545-61;  Charleston  Mercury,  Nov.  24, 
1859,  message  of  Governor  McWillie,  of  Mississippi,  Nov.  8. 

"'Republican  Banner  and  Nashville  Whig,  Oct.  6,  1856,  message  of  Governor 
Andrew  Johnson. 

"'DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  499. 

™Ibid.,  XXIV,  403  ff.;  XVII,  677  ff.;  XXVII,  350. 


I7l]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  17! 

The  sum  total  of  protective  legislation  enacted  in  the  South, 
either  in  the  form  of  discriminatory  taxation  upon  Northern  goods, 
exemption  of  home  manufactures  and  direct  imports  from  state 
taxation,  or  in  the  form  of  bounties,  was  small.  The  fact  cannot, 
however,  be  taken  without  qualification  as  due  to  the  prevalence 
of  free  trade  opinions.  Discriminatory  taxation  was  advocated 
as  a  mode  of  retaliation  for  the  aggressions  of  the  North  as  well 
as  a  measure  of  political  economy.  It  was  a  remedy  decidedly 
unfriendly  to  the  North,  subversive  of  one  of  the  primary  pur- 
poses of  the  Constitution,  and  likely  to  disturb  the  peace  between 
the  sections  and  lead  to  disunion.  It  was  extremely  doubtful  that 
laws  could  be  so  framed  as  not  to  be  held  in  violation  of  the 
Federal  Constitution  and,  for  that  matter,  the  constitutions  of 
some  of  the  Southern  states.  Such  measures  were  opposed  by 
moderate  men  who  were  trying  to  allay  sectional  feeling  rather 
than  aggravate  it,  as  well  as  by  bona  fide  free  traders  who  might 
have  been  content  with  their  political  significance.  Furthermore, 
measures  of  discriminatory  taxation  or  of  non-intercourse  would 
have  been  unsuccessful  unless  taken  in  concert  by  a  number  of 
states.  Charleston  and  Savannah,  for  example,  were  rivals  for 
much  the  same  territory;  discriminatory  taxation  in  one's  state 
and  not  in  the  other's  might  have  put  the  cities  upon  unequal 
terms.115 

State  and  local  encouragement  of  desired  industries  by  loans, 
bounties,  and  tax  exemptions  were  not  objectionable  from  the 
political  standpoint,  though  their  efficacy  may  be  doubted.  That 
they  were  not  employed  to  a  greater  extent  was  partly  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  Southern  people  put  the  building  of  internal  im- 
provements first  in  their  programs  for  developing  the  South.  Taxes 
had  to  be  increased  to  meet  the  growing  expenditures  on  their 
account,  and  the  people  of  the  South  were  not  accustomed  to 
heavy  taxation.  In  the  case  of  manufactures  and  mining,  there 
was  no  considerable  class  directly  and  primarily  interested  in 
securing  protective  legislation.  The  influence  of  directly  interested 
parties  was  further  lessened  because  they  were  generally  Northern 
men  or  foreigners.  State  legislatures  were  too  frequently  controlled 

1UC.  G.  Memminger,  Commissioner  to  Virginia,  in  an  address  to  the  Virginia 
Legislature,  1860.  DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  770.  Also  in  Capers,  Life  and  Times 
of  Memminger,  247  ff. 


1/2     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l    [172 

by  professional  politicians,  and  their  time  monopolized  by  consid- 
eration of  national  issues  and  policies  to  the  sacrifice  of  state 
interests. 

As  far  as  principles  and  theories  are  concerned,  it  was  not  a 
very  far  cry  from  the  advocacy  of  fostering  commerce  and  indus- 
try by  discriminatory  taxation  or  by  granting  bounties  and  draw- 
backs to  the  advocacy  of  the  extension  of  public  credit  or  of 
capital  in  aid  of  steamship  lines  to  Europe  or  other  enterprises. 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  Southern  commercial  conventions, 
even  those  in  which  most  was  said  about  free  trade,  were  con- 
stantly calling  upon  the  state  and  Federal  governments  to  grant 
financial  aid  to  projects  for  promoting  the  objects  of  the  conven- 
tions. And,  in  relation  to  laissez  faire  and  free  trade  doctrines, 
what  shall  be  said  of  state  and  municipal  aid  to  railroads  and 
other  internal  improvements?  Every  Southern  state  lent  aid  to 
internal  improvements.116  Virginia  was  almost  bankrupt  by  her 
loans.  After  1852  Tennessee  extended  aid  to  the  extent  of  $8,000 
per  mile  to  every  mile  of  railroad  built  within  her  limits.117 
Georgia,  in  addition  to  aiding  the  construction  of  other  roads, 
built,  owned,  and  operated  a  railroad  from  Atlanta  to  the  Ten- 
nessee line,  near  Chattanooga.  North  Carolina  followed  a  very 
liberal  policy.118  So  also,  did  Louisiana  and  Mississippi.  Texas 
offered  liberal  grants  of  public  lands.  By  no  means  least  in  the 
extent  of  financial  aid  to  internal  improvements  was  that  free 
trade  state,  South  Carolina.  No  city  in  the  South  voted  more 
money  to  further  the  construction  of  railroads  than  did  Charleston. 

It  is  true,  state  aid  to  internal  improvements  met  with  opposition 
in  the  South;  but  the  alignment  upon  the  question  by  .no  means 
coincided  with  the  alignment  upon  the  tariff,  Federal  aid  to  in- 
ternal improvements,  or  Federal  subsidies  and  bounties,  although 
there  was  a  tendency  in  that  direction.  In  Virginia  the  Demo- 
cratic party  was  in  power  when  the  immense  debt  was  contracted 

116It  is  impossible  to  develop  this  subject  here.  For  brief  accounts,  see 
Million,  J.  W.,  State  Aid  to  Railroads  in  Missouri,  ch.  VI;  De Bow's  Review, 
XX,  386-389. 

UTThe  Commissioner  of  Railroads  reported  in  October,  1857,  that  the  state's 
obligations  to  railroads  were  about  $16,000,000.  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine, 
XXXVIII,  243. 

"The  railroad  debt  of  North  Carolina  in  1860  was  £8.833,305.  DeBow's 
Review,  XXIX,  245. 


173]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  173 

for  aiding  railroads,  turnpikes,  and  other  internal  improvements. 
In  North  Carolina  the  Democrats  were  in  power  when  aid  to  rail- 
roads was  voted  upon  the  largest  scale;  in  fact,  after  1848  the 
Democratic  party  was  recognized  as  being  more  favorable  to  the 
policy  of  state  aid  than  the  Whig.  Texas,  Mississippi,  and  Arkan- 
sas were  overwhelmingly  Democratic  during  the  fifties;  yet  all  had 
internal  improvement  programmes.  Alabama,  partly  because  of 
her  peculiar  geographical  divisions,  lent  no  aid  to  railroads,  and 
not  a  great  deal  to  any  form  of  improvements;  but  there  was  a 
strong  sentiment  for  state  aid.  In  1855  a  nearly  defunct  Whig 
party  almost  won  the  state  election  by  raising  the  issue.119  Mobile 
lent  heavily  to  the  construction  of  the  Mobile  and  Ohio  railroad. 

Only  one  degree  removed  from  the  proposals  to  encourage  in- 
dustry and  commerce  by  legislation  were  the  innumerable  pleas  ad- 
dressed to  the  people  to  patronize  home  industries  and  enterprises, 
to  buy  Southern-made  in  preference  to  Northern-made  goods,  to 
purchase  from  Southern  jobbers  and  importers  rather  than  from 
Northern,  to  hire  Southern  teachers  and  mechanics  wherever  pos- 
sible, to  use  school  books  published  in  the  South,  to  patronize 
home  literature,  to  cease  sending  their  youth  to  Northern. colleges, 
and  to  visit  Southern  rather  than  Northern  pleasure  resorts.  Every 
one  of  these  pleas  asked  the  individual,  either  directly  or  by  im- 
plication, to  sacrifice  his  own  immediate  profit  or  preference  to  the 
supposed  public  good.  And  all  admitted  the  propriety  of  appeals 
for  patronage  of  home  industry.  Every  Southern  commercial  con- 
vention, when  the  members  could  not  agree  upon  more  effective 
plans  for  promoting  its  objects,  fell  back  upon  resolutions  appeal- 
ing to  the  people  to  patronize  home  enterprises;  for  upon  such 
resolutions  all  could  agree. 

There  were  many,  indeed,  in  the  South  who  believed  patronage 
of  home  industry  to  be  the  most  efficacious  means  for  achieving 
economic  independence.  An  associate  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  Alabama  said  the  efforts  made  to  promote  direct  trade  and 
manufactures  had  begun  at  the  wrong  end;  the  demands  for  the 
goods  should  be  created  first,  and  the  steamship  lines  and  fac- 
tories would  follow.  Let  the  people  resolve  to  buy  nothing  made 
or  grown  in  the  North  if  they  could  buy  a  substitute  made  or 
grown  elsewhere;  let  them  resolve  to  buy  nothing  imported  into 

""DuBose,  Life  and  Times  of  Yancey,  311. 


174     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84<>l86l    [l/4 

a  Northern  port  if  they  could  buy  a  substitute  imported  into  a 
Southern  port.120  A  letter  of  a  Charleston  mercantile  house  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  little  could  be  effected  by  legislative 
enactments  "as  long  as  we  are  in  the  Union;  a  non-intercourse  law 
will  be  a  dead  letter,  and  bounties  of  goods  of  direct  importation 
will  not  result  in  any  large  increase  in  importations."  What  was 
necessary  was  a  determination  on  the  part  of  the  people  to  patron- 
ize Southern  merchants.121  There  was  much  impatience  with  the 
magnificent  schemes  which  some  men,  particularly  in  the  Southern 
Commercial  Convention,  were  bringing  forward  for  achieving  the 
regeneration  of  the  South,  and  the  advice  was  given  to  pay  more 
attention  to  little  things.  "Great  steamships,  and  grand  expan- 
sions, and  magnificent  speeches  will  do  well  enough,  but  there  are 
little  things,  and  a  thousand  of  them,  too,  which  might  have  a 
little  attention,  and  perhaps  lead  to  some  small  advantages.  Could 
there  not  be  some  purpose,  some  real  resolution  to  encourage  not 
only  by  precept,  but  by  example,  a  little  home  industry?"122 

William  Gregg,  protectionist  though  he  was,  put  Southern  pat- 
ronage of  Southern  imports  and  domestic  industry  foremost  as  a 
measure  for  promoting  direct  trade  and  manufactures.123  He  sug- 
gested the  formation  of  societies  and  clubs  for  practising  and 
preaching  patronage  of  home  industries.124  He  charged  that  the 
people  preferred  Northern-made  articles  because  they  were  North- 
ern-made.125 Women  did  not  consider  themselves  in  fashion  un- 
less their  clothing  came  from  New  York.  There  was  "a  rage  for 
cheap  Yankee  goods."  Merchants  who  handled  Southern-made 
goods  had  to  conceal  their  origin.  The  failure  of  so  many  South- 
ern cotton  factories  during  the  hard  years  following  1849,  he  at- 
tributed largely  to  the  want  of  home  patronage.126 

Gregg  was  not  alone  in  his  complaints.  Fifty-eight  Charleston 
importing  and  jobbing  houses  ran  an  advertisement  in  the  papers 
in  the  form  of  an  address  to  the  merchants  of  the  South  and  South- 

lMDeBotv's  Review,  XXIX,  104-107. 
™Ibid.,  XXVIII,  589. 

™Ibid.,  XXIV,  573    (taken  from  a  Virginia  paper). 

12*Gregg,  "Southern  Patronage  to  Southern  Imports  and  Domestic  Industry," 
in  ibid.,  July,  1860,  to  Feb.,  1861. 
iulbid.,  XXX,  222. 

iaSee  especially  ibid.,  XXIX,  629,  776. 
"'Ibid.,  XXX,  102. 


175]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  1/5 

west.  They  urged  their  claims  for  the  patronage  and  custom  of 
merchants  of  the  interior,  and  begged  them  to  "lay  aside  the 
prejudice  (for  it  is  only  a  prejudice)  that  your  customers  prefer 
goods  from  New  York  to  those  from  Charleston  . .  ,"127  Norfolk 
merchants  advertised  goods  as  "just  from  the  North."128  The  plaint 
was  made  that  "The  very  men  who  most  vehemently  abuse  the 
Yankees  and  their  humbugs,  are  generally  the  first  to  contradict 
their  own  doctrines  .  .  .  ."  The  city  council  of  Charleston  sent  to 
Troy,  New  York,  for  a  fire  alarm  bell,  although  one  could  be  pro- 
cured at  home.  Charleston  mechanics  were  greatly  aroused  over 
the  incident.129  Individuals  protested  against  the  continual  harp- 
ing upon  Southern  dependence;  instead  of  advertising  weaknesses 
they  proposed  to  tell  of  possessions  and  possibilities.  Occasionally 
journals  of  the  Southern  Rights  persuasion  declared  their  desire 
to  publish  only  Southern  advertising  matter.  The  results  were 
disappointing;  their  columns  continued  to  be  filled  with  Northern 
advertising.  DeBow  rather  bitterly  remarked  that  he  was  con- 
vinced the  South  had  nothing  to  sell.130 

These  constant  appeals  to  individuals  to  patronize  home  indus- 
tries and  home  importing  merchants  were  unobjectionable,  but 
could  not  be  otherwise  than  ineffectual  except,  possibly,  during 
short  periods  of  great  excitement  of  the  public  mind. 

After  the  John  Brown  Raid  at  Harper's  Ferry  a  determination 
was  expressed  on  all  sides  to  practise  stern  and  uncompromising 
non-intercourse  with  the  North  as  the  best  means  of  silencing  the 
abolitionists  and  teaching  the  North  the  money  value  of  the  Union. 
The  governors  of  several  states  recommended  throwing  Southern 
ports  open  to  the  world  and  levying  high  excise  taxes  upon  North- 
ern made  goods.  The  legislatures  of  Virginia  and  Tennessee 
adopted  resolutions  pledging  the  enactment  of  effective  measures 
of  retaliation.131  Southern  travel  in  the  North  fell  off.  Many 
Northern  teachers  and  agents  were  driven  from  the  South.  Oc- 
casional business  firms  cancelled  orders  for  Northern  goods. 
Northern  firms  reported  a  falling  off  in  their  Southern  business, 

'"Charleston  Mercury,  Dec.  17,  1859. 
I38W.  S.  Forest,  Sketches  of  Norfolk,  410. 
129Charleston  Mercury,  June  I,  1858. 
™DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  555,  556;  XXVIII,  124,  493. 
XXIX,  559. 


176     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [176 

and  the  business  interests  of  the  Northern  states  became 
alarmed.132  Citizens  of  Baltimore  hastened  to  declare  Baltimore 
ready  to  take  the  place  of  more  northern  cities  as  a  commercial 
center  for  the  South.133  Southern  men  did  not  fail  to  note  that  the 
ill  feeling  between  the  sections  operated  as  a  form  of  protection 
to  home  industries.  "Let  non-intercourse  be  established,  and  how 
easy  it  will  be  for  Georgia  to  supply  half  of  the  Southern  States 
with  plantation  goods  such  as  she  now  manufactures."134  Mer- 
chants were  advised  to  take  advantage  of  the  excited  state  of  the 
public  mind  to  establish  direct  trade.135 

The  South  produced  no  Horace  Greeleys  or  Henry  C.  Careys; 
but  a  discussion  of  free  trade  versus  protection  in  the  South  would 
be  incomplete  without  mention  of  George  Fitzhugh,  of  Virginia. 
A  lawyer  by  profession,  he  took  up  his  pen,  about  1850,  to  defend 
the  South  and  slavery.  He  proved  himself  a  bold,  ingenious, 
learned,  and  prolific,  though  quite  eccentric  and  erratic,  writer. 
The  South  conceded  him  a  place  alongside  Dew,  Harper,  Ham- 
mond, and  Stringfellow  as  a  Southern  apologist.  With  his  defense 
of  slavery  and  his  attack  upon  free  society,  with  its  exploitation  of 
labor  by  capital,  we  are  not  here  directly  concerned.  Although 
not  consistently,  he  was  generally  aligned  with  those  who  believed 
the  South  should  diversify  industry,  build  up  cities  and  towns,  con- 
struct internal  improvements,  and  conduct  her  own  commerce.  He 
was  particularly  interested  in  improving  Southern  education,  both 
secondary  and  primary,  and  in  developing  Southern  literature  and 
"Southern  thought." 

Fitzhugh  repudiated  laissez  jaire,  and  declared  the  world  "too 
little  governed."  Fitzhugh  believed  in  small  nations.  He  repeated- 
ly depicted  the  evils  of  centralization,  not  only  of  government  but 
also  of  commerce,  industry,  finances,  and  literature.  He  dedicated 
his  Cannibals  All  to  the  Honorable  Henry  A.  Wise,  because  "I  am 
acquainted  with  no  one  .  .  .  who  has  seen  so  clearly  the  evils  of 
centralization  from  without,  and  worked  so  earnestly  to  cure  or 

'"Charleston  Mercury,  Dec.  29,  1859,  quoting  the  Boston  Commercial  Bul- 
letin; Wolfe,  Helper's  Impending  Crisis  Dissected,  128  ff.,  164-6,  quoting  North- 
ern papers. 

lssDf Bow's  Review,  XXVIII,  331,  quoting  the  Baltimore  Prices  Current. 

"'Wolfe,  Helper's  Impending  Crisis  Dissected,  129. 

™DeBow's  Review,  XXX,  223. 


177]  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PROTECTIVE  LEGISLATION  177 

avert  those  evils  by  building  up  centralization  within."136  And 
centralization  without,  he  declared  to  be  the  "daughter  of  that 
Southern  goddess,  Free  Trade."  The  free  traders  were  "old  fogies, 
sitting  like  an  incubus  on  the  South."137  The  disease  under  which 
the  South  suffered  was  free  trade — free  trade  with  the  North.  The 
protection  Fitzhugh  demanded  was  against  the  North,  not  against 
Europe.  He  agreed  with  Southern  free  traders  that  a  protective 
tariff  imposed  by  the  Federal  government  would  be  unconstitu- 
tional. He  thought  a  revenue  tariff  afforded  ample  incidental 
protection  against  foreign  nations;  it  was  sufficient  to  enable  the 
North  to  almost  monopolize  the  Southern  market.  When  the  re- 
sults of  the  elections  of  1858  threatened  the  enactment  of  a  pro- 
tective tariff,  he  suggested  that  state  protection  could  neutralize 
and  "peaceably  and  lawfully  nullify  federal  protection."  Fitzhugh 
would  not  wait  for  the  South  to  unite  upon  measures  of  protec- 
tion, but  have  each  state  take  such  individual  action  as  it  saw 
fit.138  When  non-intercourse  was  suggested,  he  espoused  it.  "Dis- 
union within  the  Union,"  as  he  termed  it,  would  "lead  at  once  to 
direct  trade — encourage,  promote,  and  build  up,  Southern  com- 
merce, manufactures,  agriculture,  education,  etc.,"  and  make  the 
South  independent  at  the  same  time  it  was  bringing  the  aboli- 
tionists to  terms.139  He  considered  disunion  to  be  a  measure  that 
would  put  an  end  to  free  trade  with  the  North;  but  as  late  as  the 
middle  of  1859,  at  least,  was  inclined  to  prefer  the  "State  protec- 
tive or  taxing  system"  because  it  was  "safer  than  disunion,  equally 
efficient,  and,"  so  he  said,  "involves  no  breach  of  the  constitu- 
tion."140 

It  did  not  escape  Fitzhugh's  notice  that  the  South  had  largely 
abandoned,  if  she  had  ever  practised,  a  let-alone  policy.  "For 
twenty  years  past,"  he  said,  "the  South  has  been  busy  in  protect- 

13*Cannibals  All,  or  Slaves  Without  Masters,  Richmond,  1857.  In  addition  to 
this  work  Fitzhugh  wrote,  Sociology  for  the  South,  or  the  Failure  of  Free  Socie- 
ties; Slavery  Justified  (pamphlet,  1849);  and  numerous  articles  for  DeBow's  Re- 
view and  other  periodicals. 

""DeBow's  Review,  XXVI,  659,  662.  See  Sociology  for  the  South,  especially 
chs.  I,  XIV. 

188Fitzhugh's  views  upon  state  protection  are  concisely  set  forth  in  an  article, 
"State  Rights  and  State  Remedies,"  DeBow's  Review,  XXV,  697-703. 

""Ibid.,  XXVIII,  7,  article  entitled  ''Disunion  Within  the  Union." 

ltolbid.,  XXVI,  661. 


1/8      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [l/8 

ing,  encouraging,  and  diversifying  Southern  industrial  pursuits, 
Southern  skill,  commerce,  education,  etc."  Fitzhugh  was  not  far 
from  the  truth  when  he  said:  "The  South  has  not  only  adopted 
the  protective  policy,  but,  strange  to  say,  the  editors,  legislators, 
and  statesmen,  who  are  loudest  in  professing  free  trade  doctrines, 
are,  invariably,  the  warmest  advocates  of  exclusive  and  protective 
state  legislation."  And  there  was  also  a  measure  of  truth  in  the 
statement:  "Southern  commercial  conventions  are  composed  of 
this  class  of  men,  who  are  actively  at  work  in  endeavoring  to  en- 
courage, direct,  and  control  Southern  pursuits,  by  legislation  and 
all  other  feasible  means,  while  they  profess  to  be  par  excellence 
free  trade  men. . .  .  "141 

From  this  survey  of  their  attitude  toward  protective  tariffs 
and  state  and  local  measures  to  encourage  industry  and  commerce, 
1840-1860,  we  may  conclude  that  just  prior  to  secession  the  South- 
ern people  were  by  no  means  thoroughly  committed  to  laissez  faire. 
With  regard  to  duties  upon  foreign  imports,  while  a  respectable 
minority  wanted  absolute  free  trade,  the  great  majority  favored 
a  tariff  for  revenue  with  incidental  protection.  The  sentiment  for 
protection  would  have  been  stronger  had  it  not  been  for  the  con- 
viction that,  while  North  and  South  were  bound  together  in  the 
Union,  tariffs  would  redound  almost  wholly  to  the  advantage  of 
the  former.  In  case  the  South  should  become  independent,  a  con- 
siderable protectionist  party  might  be  expected  to  develop. 


™De Bow's  Review,  XXV,  699-701. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  DISUNION 
MOVEMENT,  1852-1860 

After  the  defeat  of  the  disunion  movement  of  1850-1851  the 
disunionists  were  comparatively  quiet  for  a  few  years.  The  strug- 
gles over  slavery  were  temporarily  abated.  All  parties  seemed  to 
turn  with  more  or  less  earnestness  to  efforts  to  see  whether  some- 
thing could  not  be  done  in  an  organized  way  to  hasten  the  economic 
and  social  progress  of  the  South — a  policy  which  Unionists  had 
earlier  supported  as  a  substitute  for  disunion.  It  was  during  this 
short  period  that  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  was  insti- 
tuted, and  went  about  its  work  with  a  hope  of  accomplishing  re- 
sults. Meanwhile,  however,  the  Southern  Rights  wing  strengthened 
its  control  of  the  reunited  Democratic  party.  In  doing  this  it  was 
aided  materially  by  the  Pierce  administration.  In  his  distribution 
of  the  patronage  Pierce  tried  to  conciliate  the  Southern  Rights 
faction,  and  failed  to  recognize  the  more  conservative  element. 
He  submitted  himself  largely  to  the  guidance  of  the  radical  South- 
ern leaders  in  the  formulation  of  policies.  Meanwhile,  too,  the 
Whig  party  began  to  dissolve. 

In  1854  the  lull  in  the  quarrel  over  slavery  was  rudely  inter- 
rupted by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise — the  motives 
of  which  we  shall  not  pause  to  discuss.  The  repeal  served  as  the 
occasion  for  the  organization  of  a  sectional  party  in  the  North, 
which  in  turn  reacted  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  extremists  in 
the  South.  The  Kansas  troubles  and  the  presidential  campaign  of 
1856,  with  its  threat  of  the  election  of  the  candidate  of  a  sectional 
party,  called  forth  again  threats  of  disunion,  and  once  more  the 
subject  was  canvassed  in  all  its  aspects.  From  this  time  on  little 
reserve  was  shown  in  expressing  disunion  sentiments. 

The  session  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  held  in 
Savannah  a  month  after  the  election  showed  unmistakably  the 
growth  of  disunion  sentiment,  and  proved  to  be  the  last  controlled 
by  the  conservative  element;  its  successors  were  little  more  than 
gatherings  of  disunionists.  A  large  proportion  of  the  representa- 
tive newspapers  of  the  South,  especially  of  the  cotton  states,  openly 
and  almost  constantly  advocated  disunion.  The  Richmond  En- 
quirer, in  the  summer  of  1857,  complained  that  the  Charleston 

179 


I8O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [l8o 

Mercury  "does  nothing  from  year's  end  to  year's  end  but  to  an- 
nounce the  speedy  dissolution  of  the  Union."1  Among  others 
scarcely  less  open  in  their  advocacy  of  disunion  were,  not  to  men- 
tion South  Carolina  journals,  the  Richmond  Examiner,  Roger  A. 
Pryor's  Richmond  South,  the  Columbus  (Georgia)  Corner  Stone, 
the  Mobile  Register,  the  Mobile  Mercury,  the  Montgomery  Ad- 
vertiser and  Gazette,  the  New  Orleans  Crescent,  the  New  Orleans 
Delta,  the  Vicksburg  True  Southron,  and  the  Memphis  Appeal. 
J.  D.  B.  DeBow  had  by  this  time  become  an  avowed  disunionist, 
and  DeBow's  Review  was  disunionist  in  the  whole  tendency  of  its 
teaching.  The  Review  had  some  quite  able  writers  among  its  con- 
tributors, had  won  for  itself  a  considerable  circulation  and  much 
prestige,  and  exercised  great  influence  in  the  South.  The  avowed 
secessionists  in  Congress  had  come  to  be  a  considerable  group, 
which  included  Miles,  Keitt,  and  Bonham,  of  South  Carolina, 
Iverson,  of  Georgia,  Roger  A.  Pryor,  of  Virginia,  John  A.  Quit- 
man,  J.  D.  McRae,  Reuben  Davis,  and  Barksdale,  of  Mississippi, 
C.  C.  Clay  and  J.  L.  Pugh,  of  Alabama,  and  Wigfall,  of  Texas. 
Many  who  did  not  publicly  avow  themselves  secessionists  were 
known  to  lean  strongly  in  that  direction.  Outside  of  Congress 
were  dozens  of  men  of  reputation  and  influence,  most  conspicuous 
of  whom  was  William  Lowndes  Yancey,  of  Alabama,  who  devoted 
their  best  energies  to  advancing  the  cause  of  disunion.  Through 
public  agitation  and  discussion  and  the  later  meetings  of  the 
Southern  Commercial  Convention,2  through  private  conferences 
and  the  wide  correspondence  carried  on  by  various  individuals — 
some  unsuccessful  attempts  were  made  at  organization3 — the  dis- 
unionist leaders  in  the  several  states  became  acquainted  with  each 
other,  came  to  have  a  good  understanding  of  the  state  of  public 

*August  13. 

^Edmund  Ruffin's  Diary  gives  a  good  understanding  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Southern  Commercial  Convention,  aside  from  the  formal  meetings,  was  used  to 
promote  the  cause.  See  entries  covering  the  session  at  Montgomery,  which  Ruffin 
attended. 

'League  of  United  Southerners.  Hodgson,  Cradle  of  the  Confederacy,  393- 
396;  DuBose,  Life  and  Times  of  Yancey,  377;  Charleston  Mercury,  Aug.  3,  1858; 
Montgomery  Daily  Confederation,  May  21,  1859,  quoting  an  editorial  in  the 
Mobile  Mercury;  DeBow's  Review,  XXV,  250. 


l8l]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  l8l 

sentiment  in  all  quarters  of  the  South,  and  strove  to  approach  an 
agreement  in  regard  to  the  proper  policies  to  be  pursued.4 

Disunionists  frankly  expressed  their  hope  that  a  pretext  could 
be  found  which  would  precipitate  the  cotton  states  into  a  revolu- 
tion.5 Their  desire  to  make  an  issue  in  part  explains  the  agitation 
for  repealing  the  laws  against  the  foreign  slave  trade.  When  the 
Southern  members  in  Congress  compromised  the  Kansas  question, 
in  April,  1858,  by  accepting  the  English  bill,  several  prominent 
disunionists  expressed  their  disappointment  that  an  issue  had  not 
been  made.6  Finally,  the  issue  was  presented  when,  largely 
through  the  agency  of  the  disunionists,  the  Democratic  party  was 
split  in  twain  at  Charleston  and  Baltimore,  and  the  triumph  of  a 
sectional  party  made  inevitable. 

The  discussion  of  disunion  during  the  several  years  preceding 
the  actual  launching  of  the  experiment  left  no  phase  of  the  subject 
untouched.  Every  possible  angle  of  the  question  was  explored—- 
the ability  of  the  Southern  states  to  support  a  separate  govern- 
ment; the  probability  of  their  being  permitted  to  secede  without 
war;  the  attitude  the  border  states  would  take  in  case  the  cotton 
states  should  secede;  the  most  desirable  boundary  line;  the  di- 
vision of  the  territories;  the  policies  the  new  confederacy  should 
pursue  with  respect  to  commerce  with  the  North  and  Europe,  the 
tariff,  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Pacific  railroad,  immi- 
gration, the  slave  trade,  expansion  of  the  confederacy  to  the  south- 
ward, and  the  military  establishment;  the  effect  of  dissolution 

*In  a  letter  to  Roger  A.  Pryor,  Yancey  said  he  did  not  expect  Virginia  to 
take  the  initiative.  "Her  position  as  a  border  state,  and  a  well  considered  South- 
ern policy — (a  policy  which  has  been  digested  and  understood  and  approved  by 
some  of  the  ablest  men  in  Virginia,  as  you  yourself  must  be  aware) — would  seem 
to  demand  that,  when  such  movement  takes  place  by  any  considerable  number 
of  Southern  states,  Virginia  ....  should  remain  in  the  Union."  Hodgson,  op.  cit., 
397;  National  Intelligencer,  Sept.  4,  1858. 

"W.  L.  Yancey  to  James  S.  Slaughter,  June  15,  1858,  in  Hodgson,  op.  cit., 
393;  DuBose,  Yancey,  376. 

"Yancey  to  Thos.  J.  Orme,  May  22,  1858,  in  Montgomery  Daily  Confedera- 
tion, June  S,  1858;  DuBose,  Yancey,  366-75;  M.  L.  Bonham,  of  South  Carolina, 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  9,  Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  Appx. 
509-11.  A  correspondent  of  the  Charleston  Mercury  wrote  of  the  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention  at  Montgomery:  "I  have  not  met  a  single  man  except  the 
Virginians  who  approves  the  late  compromise  in  Kansas."  May  15,  1858. 


l82     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [l82 

upon  the  prosperity  and  development  of  the  South  as  a  whole  and 
of  particular  classes,  interests,  and  localities. 

The  various  arguments  in  favor  of  disunion  did  not  appeal  with 
equal  force  to  all  disunionists.  Many  emphasized  the  greater  se- 
curity of  slavery  in  a  separate  republic  and  the  freedom  from  the 
quarrels  over  slavery,  which  seemed  interminable  in  the  Union; 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  could  the  slavery  quarrel  have 
been  hushed,  and  the  issue  amicably  settled,  disunion  sentiment 
would  never  have  reached  alarming  proportions  or  have  been 
translated  into  action.  Others  were  prone  to  contemplate  the 
glories  of  a  great  republic  stretching  from  the  Ohio  to  Panama  and 
encircling  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Others  were  influenced  by  the 
possibility  of  reopening  the  foreign  slave  trade.  Too  many  poli- 
ticians, it  must  be  said,  felt  that  their  political  careers  had  been 
blighted  in  the  Union,  and  hoped  for  better  fortune  in  the  nar- 
rower confines  of  a  Southern  confederacy.  But  almost  all  dis- 
unionists believed,  or  professed  to  believe,  that  the  South  in  the 
Union  was  being  exploited  economically  for  the  benefit  of  the 
North;  that  the  Southern  states  had  somehow  become  tributary 
provinces  of  the  Northern;  that  Northern  wealth  largely  repre- 
sented the  product  of  Southern  labor;  and  that,  could  the  Southern 
states  but  cut  loose  from  their  Northern  connections  and  be  per- 
mitted to  work  out  their  own  destiny  in  their  own  way,  their 
prosperity  would  be  greater  and  their  development  quickened. 

The  arguments  advanced  in  support  of  these  propositions  were 
similar  to  those  used  in  1850  and  1851,  but  had  been  modified  to- 
some  extent  by  circumstances.  Since  that  time  there  had  been 
much  discussion  of  diversification  of  industry  and  development  of 
varied  resources;  commercial  conventions  had  been  held  and 
public  opinion  educated;  and  various  plans  for  regenerating  the 
South  had  been  tried  or  proposed,  and,  in  general,  had  failed. 
Whereas  in  the  earlier  period  most  of  those  who  hoped  for  a 
diversification  of  Southern  pursuits  had  held  aloof  from  or  had 
opposed  the  disunion  movement,  in  the  latter  many  of  that  class, 
despairing  of  success  in  the  Union,  lent  it  their  support. 

The  doctrine  that  the  South  paid  more  than  her  share  of  the 
taxes  and  received  less  than  her  share  of  the  disbursements  had 
been  so  frequently  repeated  that  it  was  becoming  generally  ac- 
cepted. One  estimated  at  $50,000,000  the  sum  the  South  paid 


183]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  183 

annually,  and  at  $10,000,000  the  amount  returned  in  the  form  of 
expenditures;  $40,000,000  annually  would  be  saved  by  going  out 
of  the  Union.  Such  a  sum  distributed  among  the  states  would  give 
an  enormous  impetus  to  manufactures  and  all  other  branches  of 
industry  which  suffered  from  a  deficiency  of  capital  in  the  South.7 
Southern  men  did  not  cease  to  attribute  Southern  decline  to  un- 
equal taxation  and  disbursements.8 

Direct  trade  with  Europe  would  follow,  it  was  said,  closely  upon 
the  heels  of  separation;  for  importers  would  never  pay  the  duties 
imposed  by  the  North  in  addition  to  the  moderate  duties  imposed 
by  the  Southern  confederacy.  "With  a  horizontal  duty  upon  all 
imposts  it  would  be  impossible  for  foreign  products  to  come  to  us 
by  way  of  the  cities  of  the  North."9  If  necessary,  navigation  laws 
could  be  enacted  discriminating  against  Northern  shipping.  For- 
eign ships  would  flock  to  Southern  ports;  Northern  ships  would 
be  transferred  to  the  South.  Northern  seaports  would  decline; 
Southern  would  flourish.10  The  South,  having  control  of  its  own 
commerce,  would  control  the  "exchanges"  also,  and  thus  become 
financially  independent.  The  establishment  of  direct  trade  would 
give  an  impulse  to  every  other  pursuit:  "Manufactories  would 
then  grow  up,  commerce  would  extend,  mechanical  arts  would 
flourish,  and,  in  short,  every  industrial  and  every  professional 
pursuit  would  receive  a  vivifying  impulse."11 

Of  all  those  who  speculated  in  regard  to  the  proper  policy  of  a 
new  confederacy,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  very  few  proposed  that 
the  government  should  be  supported  without  resort  to  duties  on 

''DeBow's  Review,  XXI,  543.  Similar  statements  are  in  the  Charleston 
Mercury,  Feb.  25,  1858,  quoting  the  Mobile  Mercury;  DeBow's  Review,  XXX, 
252;  ibid.,  XXI,  532;  speech  of  J.  A.  Jones,  of  Georgia,  in  Vicksburg,  New  York 
Herald,  May  21,  1859. 

sjohn  Forsyth's  lecture  on  "The  North  and  the  South,"  Mobile,  1854, 
DeBow's  Review,  XVII,  368-73;  ibid.,  XIX,  383-4;  ibid.,  XXVI,  476  (A.  P.  Cal- 
houn,  1859);  ibid.,  XXX,  436  (DeBow,  1858);  W.  P.  Miles,  of  South  Carolina, 
in  House  of  Representatives,  Mar.  31,  1858,  Charleston  Mercury,  Apr.  17; 
Southern  Literary  Messenger,  XXXI,  238;  "Barbarossa"  [John  Scott],  The  Lost 
Principle,  or  the  Sectional  Equilibrium,  Pt.  I,  ch.  V;  Claiborne,  Life  and  Corre- 
spondence of  John  A.  Quit-man,  II,  186-7. 

'DeBow's  Review,  XXI,  543. 

"Ibid.,  XXI,  519;  XXV,  373;  XXIII,  604;  Cong.  Globe,  33  Cong,  i  Sess., 
375  (Preston  S.  Brooks). 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  462. 


184     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1  840-  1  86  1    [184 

imports.  It  is  true  many  spoke  of  a  free  trade  republic;  but  "free 
trade"  was  generally  equivalent  to  "tariff  for  revenue  only." 
Almost  all  would  have  had  low  duties;  but  while  some  told  how 
low  they  would  be  and  emphasized  the  blessings  of  free  trade, 
others  dwelt  upon  the  incidental  protection  which  would  be  af- 
forded by  a  tariff  for  revenue.  Said  Willoughby  Newton,  a  Vir- 
ginia disunionist  of  long  standing,  "A  tariff  for  the  support  of  the 
new  government  would  give  such  protection  to  manufacturers  that 
all  our  waterfalls  would  bristle  with  machinery."12  Men  from 
border  states  were  more  inclined  to  speak  of  the  advantages  of 
protection  against  Northern  competition  than  were  men  from  the 
cotton  states,  though  the  latter  often  held  out  as  an  inducement 
to  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  to  go  with  the  Gulf  states  the 
probability  that  they  would  supplant  New  England  in  manufac- 
turing for  the  South.  There  were  free  traders,  however,  who 
thought  it  might  be  well  to  leave  the  Northern  slave  states  out  of 
the  confederacy  lest  they  should  demand  protection  for  their  in- 
dustries. Disunionists  believed  that,  in  case  of  separation,  the 
North  would  have  to  resort  to  direct  taxation  to  support  her  gov- 
ernment; for  she  would  no  longer  be  able  to  import  on  Southern 
account,  and  she  could  not  tax  imports  from  the  South,  since 
they  were  chiefly  raw  materials.13  The  consequences  of  direct 
taxation  would  be  the  transfer  to  the  South  of  much  capital  in- 
vested in  manufactures. 

The  disunionists  often  took  a  somewhat  skeptical  attitude  to- 
ward the  efforts  which  were  being  made  to  promote  Southern 
commerce  and  industry  while  the  Union  continued.  Each  failure 
confirmed  their  opinion  that  such  efforts  were  futile.  The  Charles- 
ton Mercury  said  that  in  the  Union  "Direct  trade  with  the  cus- 
tomers of  the  South  in  Europe  is  an  impossibility.  ..  .Norfolk, 
Charleston,  Savannah,  Mobile,  are  only  suburbs  of  New  York."14 
According  to  a  contributor  to  DeBow's  Review,  the  process  of  de- 
velopment went  on  much  more  slowly  than  in  the  North,  and 
must  as  long  as  the  South  remained  in  the  Union  with  the  North 
to  lean  upon.  Disunion  would  call  for  and  foster  a  variety  of 
home  products.  Pride  would  demand  protection  for  home  indus- 


Review,  XXV,  373   (Sept.,  1858). 
"Ibid.,  XXI,  541-44. 
"May  20,  1858. 


185]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  185 

tries.  Diversification  would  develop  and  unfold  the  wealth  of  the 
South.  "True,  we  might,  in  the  course  of  time,  unfold  this  wealth 
in  the  Union,  but  not  till  the  teeming  North  has  'embellished  all 
her  slopes,'  and  of  her  superabundance  and  for  lack  of  other  lands 
to  conquer,  empties  her  surplus  on  us,  ...  With  all  these  aids 
and  stimulants  we  must  advance  with  equal  or  faster  steps  than 
they."15  A.  J.  Roane,  of  Virginia,  wrote:  "Experience  has  demon- 
strated that  direct  trade  to  Southern  ports  cannot  be  established 
to  any  considerable  extent  in  the  Union.  It  can  only  be  accom- 
plished by  the  stress  of  the  necessity  which  separation  would  cre- 
ate."16 In  Virginia  the  opinion  was  held  that  in  case  of  disunion 
the  very  necessity  of  her  condition  of  estrangement  from  the 
manufacturing  North  would  impel  her  to  add  a  manufacturing 
phase  to  her  already  innumerable  sources  of  wealth.17 

As  we  have  seen,  certain  south  Atlantic  ports,  particularly  of 
Virginia,  which  was  slowly  building  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio 
railroad,  aspired  to  export  and  import  for  the  Ohio  and 
the  upper  Mississippi  valleys,  and  had  high  expectations  of 
the  beneficial  effects  of  such  a  commerce  upon  the  prosperity 
of  the  seaboard  regions.  A  considerable  part  of  the  exports  and 
some  of  the  imports  of  the  Northwest  still  followed  the  Mississippi 
river  with  New  Orleans  as  their  port  of  entry  and  departure.  The 
people  of  New  Orleans,  furthermore,  hoped  to  retain  or  increase 
her  share  of  the  Western  commerce  by  the  building  of  north  and 
south  railroads.  There  continued  to  be  considerable  exchange  of 
products  between  the  South  and  the  West.  It  was  to  be  presumed 
that  the  people  who  profited  or  expected  to  profit  by  this  Western 
trade  would  be  loath  to  have  a  measure  taken  which  might  injure 
that  trade  and  destroy  the  prospects  of  future  benefits  from  it. 
Disunionists  sought  to  overcome  the  objections  of  those  who  yet 
expected  much  of  Western  trade  in  the  way  of  promoting  South- 
ern prosperity.  To  meet  the  demands  of  New  Orleans  and  pre- 
serve peace  with  the  West,  they  generally  agreed  that,  in  case  of 
separation,  it  would  be  necessary  to  guarantee  free  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi;  it  was  frequently  suggested  that  Western 
products  be  admitted  free  of  duty.18  Some  Southerners  professed 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  471-474  (Nov.,  1857).  Cf.  ibid.,  XXI,  177-186. 

"Ibid.,  XXIX,  463. 

"New  York  Herald,  October  23,  1860. 

^DeBow's  Review,  XXX,  93   (Maj.  W.  H.  Chase,  of  Florida). 


l86     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [l86 

to  believe  that,  in  case  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  the  close 
commercial  relations  of  the  two  sections  and  the  absolute  neces- 
sity to  the  West  of  the  Mississippi  river  as  an  outlet  for  her  com- 
merce would  induce  the  West  to  cast  her  lot  with  the  South  rather 
than  with  the  East;19  they  were  not  averse  to  admitting  free  states 
into  their  slaveholding  republic. 

It  is  rather  strange  how  tenaciously  Southern  men  on  the  eve 
of  secession  clung  to  the  belief  that  the  old  alliance  of  the  South 
and  West,  based  upon  commercial  relations  and  common  opposi- 
tion to  the  tariff  and  financial  policies  of  the  East,  still  continued. 
For  example,  Governor  Wickliffe,  of  Louisiana,  in  his  message  of 
January,  1859,  said:  "The  position  of  the  Northwestern  States 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  on  this  question  [slavery]  is  of  especial 
interest  to  us.  These  States  are,  by  geographical  position,  com- 
mercially our  allies,  whether  slave  or  free,  while  many  of  the 
States  on  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  Alleghanies  are  necessarily 
hostile  in  commercial  interest.  ...  It  is  cheering  to  find  our  com- 
mercial allies  of  the  Northwest  sustaining  our  Southern  policy."20 
This  statement  is  accurate  in  no  particular.  The  value  of  the  trade 
between  the  West  and  East  was  several  times  greater  than  the 
value  of  the  trade  between  the  West  and  South.  Not  only  did 
most  of  the  foreign  imports  of  the  West  come  by  way  of  the  East; 
but  by  far  the  larger  part  of  Western  exports  went  that  way.  The 
travel  between  East  and  West  was  much  greater  than  between 
South  and  West.  Much  Eastern  capital  was  invested  in  the  West. 
In  politics,  too,  the  West  and  East  had  been  drawing  closer 
together.  The  tariff  no  longer  divided  them  as  it  did  in  the  days  of 
Calhoun.  Both  stood  for  a  liberal  policy  in  regard  to  improve- 
ment of  rivers  and  harbors.  The  South  had  abandoned  her  old 
liberal  attitude  on  the  public  lands  question,  and  steadily  opposed 
homestead  bills  and  land  grants  to  railroads;  while  in  some 
quarters  the  old  demand  for  distribution  of  the  proceeds  from  the 
sale  of  public  lands  was  revived.  The  East,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  inclined  to  support  the  public  lands  policies  of  the  West.  On 
the  immigration  question,  the  West  agreed  with  the  East  rather 

"Senator  Hammond,  of  South  Carolina,  Mar.  4,  1858,  Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong., 
I  Sess.,  961;  "Barbarossa,"  The  Lost  Principle,  225;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  603, 
(Edmund  Ruffin). 

30New  Orleans  Daily  True  Delta,  Jan.  19,  1859. 


187]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  l8/ 

than  with  the  South;  the  same  was  true  of  the  Pacific  railroad 
question.  On  the  paramount  issue  of  slavery,  the  people  of  the 
free  states  of  the  Northwest  were  rapidly  losing  their  old  indiffer- 
ent attitude,  and  becoming  more  hostile  to  the  institution. 

Along  with  their  pictures  of  the  prosperity  and  progress  which 
would  follow  the  formation  of  an  independent  Southern  confeder- 
acy, disunionists  frequently  advanced  arguments  to  prove  that  it 
would  be  accompanied  by  no  countervaling  disadvantages.  Seces- 
sion would  be  peaceful,  they  said,  because  the  interruption  of 
Southern  trade,  in  case  the  North  should  undertake  coercion,  would 
bring  such  prostration  to  Northern  industry  and  commerce  that  she 
would  not  have  the  means  to  go  to  war.  Furthermore,  England 
and  France  would  not  permit  a  blockade,  because  a  cutting  off  of 
the  supply  of  cotton  would  bring  ruin  to  important  industries.21 
Thus  the  disunionists  had  an  argument  at  every  turn. 

About  the  time  of  Lincoln's  election  there  was  published  a 
volume  by  Edmund  Ruffin  entitled,  Anticipations  of  the  Future  to 
Serve  as  Lessons  for  the  Present  Time,  in  the  Form  of  Extracts 
of  Letters  from  an  English  Resident  in  the  United  States,  to  the 
London  Times,  from  1864  to  1870,  etc.22  Ruffin  was  a  man  of  con- 
siderable ability.  He  was  known  throughout  the  South,  and  his 
name  carried  great  weight  because  of  his  long  record  of  valuable 
services  to  Virginia  and  the  South  at  large,  chief  of  which  were  his 
contributions  to  improved  methods  of  agriculture.  He  was  a 
secessionist  of  long  standing,  and  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  move- 
ment.23 His  book  gives  such  a  complete  statement  of  the  disunion 
arguments,  colored  perhaps  by  his  Virginia  viewpoint,  that  a 
summary  of  it  is  desirable. 

Ruffin  allowed  Lincoln  to  serve  one  term  and  his  more  radical 
successor,  Seward,  to  serve  part  of  one  without  a  dissolution  of 
the  Union.  When,  however,  Seward  proposed  to  stand  for  a 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  596-601;  XXIX,  457-463;  XXX,  95  if. 

22The  earliest  notice  I  have  seen  of  the  book  was  in  the  National  Intelligencer, 
Nov.  15,  1860,  which  said  the  work  belonged  to  the  "disunion  literature  of  the 
current  day."  It  was  published  anonymously,  but  the  authorship  was  evident 
from  the  appendage  of  a  series  of  essays  on  "The  Causes  of  the  Independence  of 
the  South"  which  had  appeared  in  1856  and  of  which  Ruffin  was  known  to  be 
the  author.  Essays  were  in  Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  and  Jan.,  1856-1857;  De- 
Bow's  Review,  XXII,  583-93;  XXIII,  266-72,  546-52,  596-607. 

23For  a  brief  biographical  sketch,  see  ibid.,  XI,  431-436. 


l88      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [l88 

second  term,  six  cotton  states  seceded.  Whereupon,  after  some 
attempts  at  settlement,  the  Federal  government  established  a 
blockade  of  Southern  ports,  and  war  ensued,  the  northern  slave 
states  remaining  neutral.  By  May,  1868,  because  of  the  loss  of 
Southern  trade  and  cotton,  there  were  great  suffering,  threatening 
mobs,  and  sanguinary  riots  in  the  North.  Northern  merchants  and 
manufacturers  felt  very  severely  the  loss  of  $40,000,000  due  them 
from  the  South  and  sequestered  by  the  government  of  the  new 
confederacy.  The  South  suffered  also  from  the  blockade;  but  there 
were  compensations  in  that  it  taught  the  Southern  people  to  be 
independent  of  the  North.  Soon  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and 
Maryland  found  it  no  longer  possible  to  remain  neutral,  and 
entered  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  South.  Another  $50,000,000  of 
debts  were  sequestered.  The  North  did  not  attempt  to  carry  the 
war  into  the  border  states.  In  July,  1868,  it  was  reported  that 
the  imports  and  revenues  of  the  North  had  fallen  off  tremen- 
dously; for  the  "greater  part  of  the  former  importations  to  North- 
ern ports  and  in  Northern  ships,  was  for  transhipment  to  and  con- 
sumption in  the  Southern  states."24  In  August  outbreaks  and 
violence  were  reported  in  the  impoverished  Northern  cities;  New 
York  was  sacked  and  burned — a  rather  bitter  commentary  on  the 
supposed  friendship  of  the  South  and  New  York  City.  Soon  the 
North  was  unable  to  continue  the  war;  and  a  truce  was  made. 

By  February,  1869,  renewal  of  commercial  intercourse  and 
peaceful  relations  had  given  a  wonderful  impulse  to  trade  and 
business  in  the  South.  But  Southern  merchants  had  entirely 
ceased  going  to  the  North  to  purchase  goods  of  any  kind:  "For  all 
Northern  fabrics  being  now  subject  to  high  duties,  would  thereby 
be  so  much  enhanced  in  price,  that  but  few  kinds  can  be  sold  in 
Southern  markets,  in  competition  with  European  articles  subject  to 
the  same  rates  of  duties  only — or  of  Southern  manufactures,  now 
protected  by  the  same  tariff  law  which  had  formerly  been  enacted 
by  the  superior  political  power  of  the  North,  and  to  operate 
exclusively  for  the  profit  of  Northern  capital  and  industry."25 
Northern  ship  owners  were  transferring  their  ships  to  the  South; 
Northern  manufacturers  were  coming;  and  much  Northern  capital 
was  seeking  investment  there.  A  month  later  it  was  reported  that 
the  "commercial  prosperity  of  the  South  is  growing  with  a  force 

"P.  283. 
"P.  318. 


189]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  189 

and  rapidity  exceeding  any  previous  anticipations  of  the  most 
sanguine  early  advocates  for  the  independence  of  the  Southern 
states."26 

The  Western  states  had  taken  but  little  part  in  the  war.  The 
South  had  granted  them  free  trade  and  free  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi.  Because  of  this  indulgent  and  conciliatory  treatment 
the  people  of  the  Northwest  had  not  tried  to  open  direct  trade  with 
Europe,  but  were  content  to  trade  principally  with  New  Orleans. 
On  April  7,  1869,  it  was  reported  that  New  England  and  the  West 
were  at  loggerheads  over  the  tariff.27  The  volume  closes  with  a 
prediction  that  the  North  would  soon  split,  the  Western  states, 
upon  their  own  offer,  going  with  the  South.  "And  should  New  Eng- 
land be  left  alone,  thenceforward  its  influence  for  evil  on  the 
Southern  states  will  be  of  as  little  effect,  and  its  political  and 
economical  position  scarcely  superior,  to  those  conditions  of  the 
present  republic  of  Hayti."28 

By  April  14,  1869,  it  was  reported,  commercial  treaties  had  been 
made  by  the  South  with  European  powers.  No  duties  were  to  be 
over  20  per  cent.  The  treaties  might  be  terminated  after  ten  years. 
The  tobacco  growers,  who  had  so  often  in  the  old  Union  requested 
the  government  to  attempt  to  secure  a  relaxation  of  the  heavy 
duties  imposed  upon  their  product  by  France  and  England,  now 
had  their  wishes  gratified.'29 

Ruffin's  book  was  written  during  a  political  campaign  when  it 
was  well  understood  that,  in  case  of  Lincoln's  election,  the  cotton 
states  would  in  all  probability  secede;  but  its  content  was  only  an 
amplification  of  a  series  of  letters  published  in  the  Richmond 
Enquirer  in  December,  1856,  and  January,  1857.  And  the  argu- 
ments for  secession  which  he  used  were  typical  of  the  secessionist 
-per  se  propaganda  to  which  the  people  of  the  South  had  been  ac- 
customed for  at  least  a  decade. 

Southern  people  were  strengthened  in  their  expectations  of 
beneficial  economic  effects  to  follow  secession  by  a  class  of  poli- 
ticians, writers,  and  newspaper  editors  representing  those 
Northern  commercial  and  mercantile  interests  whose  business  was 
largely  with  the  South,  and  those  Northern  manufacturing  inter- 

2CP.  323. 
"P.  328. 
*P.  338. 
"P.  329.  Cf.  "Barbarossa,"  The  Lost  Principle,  176  ff. 


I9O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861 

ests  who  either  sold  their  products  in  the  South  or  purchased  their 
raw  material  there,  or  both.  The  best  known  and  most  trust- 
worthy individual  of  this  class  was  Thomas  Prentice  Kettell, 
mentioned  before  in  connection  with  the  secession  movement  of 
1850.  He  was,  in  1860,  the  editor  of  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine. 
His  views  carried  considerable  weight,  especially  in  the  South, 
where  his  free  trade  principles,  his  sympathetic  attitude  on  the 
slavery  question,  and  his  interest  in  Southern  economic  develop- 
ment had  long  been  known.  Early  in  the  presidential  campaign  of 
1860  there  was  published  a  book  by  him  entitled,  Southern  Wealth 
and  Northern  Profits,  As  Exhibited  in  Statistical  Facts  and 
Official  Figures;  Showing  the  Necessity  of  Union  to  the  Future 
Prosperity  and  Welfare  of  the  Republic.  The  book  showed  an 
excellent  understanding  of  the  commercial  and  financial  relations 
of  the  North  and  South;  the  conclusions  were  supported  by  tables 
of  statistics,  largely  drawn  from  official  sources.  The  burden  of 
the  book  was,  as  the  title  indicates,  that  the  South  produced 
wealth,  but  that  this  wealth  accumulated  in  the  North:  Capital, 
said  Kettell,  accumulates  slowly  in  all  agricultural  countries  and 
rapidly  in  commercial  and  manufacturing  countries.30  He  de- 
scribed the  resources  of  the  South,  her  enormous  production  of 
cotton  and  numerous  other  products,  and  her  immense  exports  to 
the  North  as  well  as  to  Europe.  He  further  showed  the  extent  of 
Southern  purchases  in  the  North,  the  value  of  the  commerce 
carried  for  the  South  by  the  North,  the  Northern  tonnage  so 
employed — in  short  he  discussed  every  form  of  profit  derived  by 
the  North  from  her  relations  with  the  South.  The  total  profits 
the  North  derived  annually  from  Southern  wealth  he  summarized 
in  the  following  table:31 

"P.  126. 

S1P.  127.  There  is  no  way  to  check  these  items  with  any  accuracy,  were  it 
worth  while  to  do  so.  The  fishing  bounties  were  paid  from  the  general  revenues, 
and,  therefore,  by  both  North  and  South  in  proportions  of  their  respective  con- 
tributions. The  second  is  undoubtedly  greatly  exaggerated.  The  average  yearly  re- 
ceipts from  customs,  1856-1860  inclusive,  was  $54,487,600.  Assuming  that  the 
people  of  the  South  paid  as  much  per  capita  as  the  people  of  the  North,  which 
they  probably  did  not  (See  ante  p.  103.),  the  South  paid  about  $21,440,000  an- 
nually. A  part  of  this  at  least  was  disbursed  in  the  South.  The  sixth  item  is 
probably  much  too  large.  So,  also,  is  the  last.  Northern  investments  in  the  South 
and  loans  and  extensions  of  credit  greatly  exceeded  in  amount  Southern  invest- 


I9l]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  19! 

Bounties  to  fisheries,  per  annum $  1,500,000 

Customs,  per  annum,  disbursed  at  the  North. . . .  40,000,000 

Profits  to  Manufacturers 30,000,000 

Profits  to  Importers 16,000,000 

Profits  to  Shipping,  imports  and  exports 40,000,000 

Profits  on  Travelers 60,000,000 

Profits  of  Teachers,  and  others,  at  the  South, 

sent  North 5,000,000 

Profits  of  Agents,  brokers,  commissions,  etc 10,000,000 

Profits  of  Capital  drawn  from  the  South 30,000,000 

Total  from  these  sources $232,500,000 

In  sixty  years,  according  to  Kettell's  estimate,  $2,770,000,000 
had  been  transferred  from  the  South  to  the  North  in  these  ways. 
Such  heavy  drains  had  prevented  the  accumulation  of  capital  in 
the  South.32 

Kettell's  arguments  were  addressed  to  the  Northern  people;  he 
urged  them  not  to  endanger  their  prosperity  by  the  unnecessary 
agitation  of  the  slavery  question.  The  South  and  West  were  por- 
trayed as  having  great  natural  resources,  whereas  the  East  had 
few;  the  prosperity  of  the  latter  depended  upon  manufacturing 
and  shipping  for  others.33  He  described  the  efforts  which  had  been 
made  in  the  South  to  make  the  section  independent  of  the  North, 
and  the  progress  already  made  toward  that  goal;  these  he  at- 
tributed to  the  anti-slavery  agitation.  He  considered  the  possibil- 
ity of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  In  that  case,  "it  is  quite  apparent 
that  the  North,  as  distinguished  from  the  South  and  West,  would 
be  alone  permanently  injured."  As  for  the  South,  "in  the  long 
run  it  would  lose — after  recovering  from  first  disasters — nothing 
by  separation."34 

Disunionists  saw  in  Kettell's  book  an  argument  for  secession. 
John  Townsend,  of  South  Carolina,  cut  Kettell's  estimate  of 
Northern  profits  from  Southern  industry  to  less  than  half — 
$105,000,000  annually  or  $2,100,000,000  in  twenty  years.  What 
would  not  this  sum  have  accomplished  for  the  South  in  twenty 
years?  he  asked.  Direct  trade  and  flourishing  cities.  "Domestic 

ments  in  the  North  and  deposits  of  Southern  funds  in  Northern  banks.  The 
item  should  read,  "interest  on  Southern  debts  to  Northern  citizens;"  at  any  rate 
such  an  item,  and  it  would  not  be  a  small  one,  should  be  included  in  the  table. 

"P.  127. 

"P.  75- 

"P.  75- 


192      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [192 

manufactures  would  have  occupied  every  water  power,  and  the 
whole  South, — wealthy  and  equipped,  and  armed  at  every  point, 
— would  have  been  able  to  defend  herself  against  the  world."35 
DeBow,  another  disunionist,  in  his  review  of  Southern  Wealth  and 
Northern  Profits,  said:  "The  author  deserves,  by  his  labors,  not 
only  on  this  occasion,  but  during  a  long  and  active  career,  the 
most  substantial  recognition,  as  one  of  the  noblest  and  truest 
patriots,  the  most  profound  economists,  and  ablest  statistical 
philosophers  of  the  age."36 

Of  Northern  newspapers  which  encouraged  the  Southern  people 
to  believe  that  disunion  would  be  followed  by  unprecedented 
prosperity,  none  was  more  widely  read  and  quoted  or  wielded 
greater  influence  in  the  South  than  the  New  York  Herald.  It  kept 
close  watch  of  events  and  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  the  South, 
and  should  have  known,  perhaps  did  know,  the  temper  of  the 
people.  It  constantly  advocated  a  policy  of  meeting  Southern 
demands  and  avoidance  of  wounding  Southern  sensibilities  in 
order  that  the  South  might  not  be  compelled  to  resort  to  measures 
which  would  work  injury  to  the  navigating,  mercantile,  and 
financial  interests  of  New  York,  which  the  Herald  represented.  In 
case  of  disunion,  according  to  the  Herald,  the  imports  of  the 
Northern  confederation  would  so  fall  off  that  it  would  have  to 
resort  to  direct  taxation,  while  the  South  would  have  ample 
revenue.  Manufactures  would  be  established  in  the  South  with 
Northern  capital.  Northern  shipping  would  rot  at  its  docks.  Part 
of  the  Northern  population  would  migrate  to  the  South,  so  the 
disproportion  in  numbers  would  cease  to  exist.  The  value  of  real 
estate  in  the  North  would  be  greatly  reduced.37 

The  views  which  disunionists,  and  others  both  South  and  North, 
held  in  regard  to  the  economic  benefits  to  follow  the  formation  of  a 
Southern  confederacy  did  not  go  uncontroverted  in  the  South. 
Conservative  journals,  such  as  the  New  Orleans  Picayune,  perhaps 
the  best  newspaper  in  the  South,  the  Montgomery  Daily  Confed- 
eration, the  Republican  Banner  and  Nashville  Whig,  and  the 
Savannah  Daily  Republican,  did  not  consider  that  the  Union 

*The  South  Alone  Should  Govern  the  South.    And  African  Slavery  Should 
Be  Controlled  by  Those  Only  Who  Are  Friendly  to  It  (pamphlet),  3rd  edition, 

P-  Si- 

^DeBoiv's  Review,  XXIX,  213. 
"October  30,  1860,  editorial,  for  example. 


193]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  193 

injuriously  affected  the  economic  interests  of  the  Southern  states. 
Said  the  Picayune,  1858:  "One  of  the  most  erroneous  ideas, 
strangely  obtaining  considerable  currency  at  the  South,  is  that 
which  attributes  apparent  decay  of  the  older,  and  comparative  slow 
growth  of  the  younger  Southern  States,  to  a  fixed  policy  of  the 
General  Government,  assumed  to  be  partial  to  sections  in  which 
slavery  does  not  exist."38  The  Montgomery  Daily  Confederation 
said,  1859:  "Nor  are  we  wanting  in  a  proper  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  the  Union.  .  .  .  We  sing  no  anthems  to  its  glories,  at 
the  same  time  we  cannot  forget  that  under  it,  we  have  grown  to  be 
a  great,  prosperous,  and  after  all,  a  happy  people."39  Occasionally 
DeBow's  Review  contained  an  article  which  refuted  the  views 
presented  by  the  majority  of  its  contributors.40  Conservative 
statesmen  often  described  the  South  as  prosperous,  and  attributed 
that  prosperity  to  the  Union.  Such  a  one  was  Alexander  H. 
Stephens.41  Senator  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  in  his  speech  on  the 
Lecompton  bill,  1858,  described  the  disunionists  perseoi  the  South, 
and  expressed  his  dissent  from  their  doctrines.42 

Disunionists  were  forced  to  admit  on  the  eve  of  the  war  that 
the  South  was  enjoying  a  comparative  degree  of  prosperity;  and 
they  expressed  concern  lest  a  feeling  of  content  with  their  eco- 
nomic condition  would  make  the  Southern  people  incapable  of 
maintaining  their  rights.43  The  Charleston  Mercury  found  it 
necessary  to  protest  against  an  editorial  of  the  New  Orleans  Bee, 
"an  inveterate  old  Whig  paper,"  for  intimating  "that  the  Southern 
people  are  so  cankered  by  prosperity  as  to  be  incapable  of  resist- 
ing the  sectional  domination  of  the  North,  and  that  the  Union  will 

ssMay  22,  1858. 

"May  19,  1859.  A  year  earlier  it  had  said:  ''We  scout  the  position  so  often 
assumed  that  we  are  inferior — that  we  are  degraded  in  this  Union  .  .  .  That  the 
North  does  our  trading  and  manufacturing  mostly  is  true,  and  we  are  willing  that 
they  should.  If  we  thought  as  some  seem  to  think  on  the  subject,  we  should 
boldly  raise  the  standard  of  secession,  and  never  cease  the  strife  until  the  Union 
were  dissolved."  May  19,  1858. 

"XXIV,  431-39,  e.g. 

"Letter  to  J.  J.  Crittenden,  Jan.  2,  1860;  address  to  his  constituents,  Aug. 
14,  1857,  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence,  415  ff. 

"Ccng.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  Appx.,  139-40. 

"Speech  of  R.  B.  Rhett,  July  4,  1859,  in  Charleston  Mercury,  July  7;  ad- 
dress of  Col.  A.  P.  Aldrich  at  the  fair  of  the  South  Carolina  Institute,  Nov.  17, 
1859,  ibid.,  Nov.  19. 


194     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [194 

be  continued  because  of  this  prosperity."44  Disunionists  found  it 
necessary,  also,  to  allay  the  fears  of  those  engaged  in  industry  and 
commerce  who,  while  desirous  of  Southern  industrial  and  com- 
mercial independence,  believed  that  the  sudden  disruption  of 
established  relationships  which  disunion  might  cause  would  pros- 
trate their  business.45  Much  of  the  disunion  argument  seems  to 
have  been  designed  to  win  over  this  class  of  men. 

Some  of  the  leaders  in  the  various  efforts  made  to  effect  an 
industrial  and  commercial  revolution  in  the  South  were  not  con- 
vinced by  the  arguments  of  the  unconditional  disunionists.  James 
Robb,  to  whom  more  than  to  any  other  individual  belongs  the 
credit  for  the  successful  building  of  the  New  Orleans,  Jackson, 
and  Great  Northern  railroad,  undertook  to  expose  the  fallacies  of 
the  secession  arguments.  It  would  be  suicide  for  the  South  to 
abandon  the  Union.  The  pursuits  of  the  people  of  the  South  were 
incompatible  with  any  considerable  progress  in  manufacturing 
and  commerce.  The  remedy  for  dependence  upon  the  North  was 
not  secession  but  a  change  of  habits.  The  South  had  better  be 
dependent  ypon  the  North  than  upon  Europe.  "The  Southern 
mind  is  deluded  in  the  belief  that  England  and  France  will  give 
to  a  separate  Southern  Confederacy,  founded  on  Slavery,  Free 
Trade,  and  Cotton,  their  entire  sympathies."  If  self-interest  did 
not  appeal  to  New  England,  would  it  appeal  to  England  and 
France?  The  belief  that  the  withdrawal  of  Southern  trade  would 
ruin  the  East  was  too  absurd  to  merit  notice.  "Where,"  he  asked, 
"is  the  evidence  of  the  prosperity  of  the  Southern  States  being 
seriously  endangered  by  a  continued  fellowship  with  New  Eng- 
land? Our  material  progress  for  the  last  fifteen  years  is  without 
example,  .  .  .  "46 

William  Gregg,  one  of  the  ablest  and  sanest  thinkers  in  the 
South  upon  questions  affecting  the  economic  interests  of  the  sec- 
tion, was  not  a  secessionist  per  se.*7  The  South  was  not  ready 

"April  30,  1859. 

"See,  for  example,  A.  J.  Roane  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  462. 

"Letter  to  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Nov.  25,  1860,  in  a  pamphlet,  A  South- 
ern Confederacy.  Letters  by  fames  Robb,  late  a  citizen  of  New  Orleans,  to  an 
American  in  Paris  and  Hon.  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  pp.  11-24. 

"The  statements  relative  to  Gregg's  position  are  based  upon  a  series  of 
essays  on  "Southern  Patronage  to  Southern  Imports  and  Domestic  Industry" 
which  appeared  in  DeBow's  Review,  July,  1860.  to  February,  1861,  but  all  of 


195]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  195 

for  independence,  he  said.  The  Southern  people  should  make 
themselves  commercially  and  industrially  independent  of  the 
North  before  going  out  of  the  Union.  There  would  be  no  ad- 
vantage in  turning  from  the  Yankees  and  relying  upon  Europe.48 
Free  trade  among  the  states  he  considered  the  greatest  bond  of 
Union;  and  at  the  time  he  wrote,  1860,  still  thought  it,  "if  proper- 
ly poised  and  equalized  throughout  our  common  country,  will 
dispel  the  dark  cloud  which  hangs  over  truth  and  justice  .  .  ,"49 
Yet  Gregg  was  not  oblivious  to  some  of  the  possible  advantages  of 
disunion.  If  a  line  were  drawn  which  would  be  a  barrier  to  the 
importation  of  Northern  locomotives,  for  example,  two  years 
would  not  elapse  before  the  South  would  manufacture  them  her- 
self. Disunion  would  stop  the  practice  followed  by  Southern  banks 
and  money  lenders  of  employing  their  money  in  New  York  rather 
than  at  home,  which  was-  a  "monstrous  barrier  to  Southern 
enterprise."50 

Yet,  after  giving  due  weight  to  such  Union  arguments  as  we 
have  just  analyzed,  it  remains  that  the  disunionist  arguments  in 
regard  to  the  material  benefits  of  their  project  were  not  adequately 
refuted  in  the  South.  Unionists  more  frequently  took  the  course  of 
appealing  to  the  common  history  of  the  American  people,  their 
common  republican  institutions,  the  greatness  of  the  Union,  its 
prestige  among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  its  vast  military  strength, 
the  weakness  and  insignificance  the  South  would  have  as  an 
independent  nation,  her  inability  to  protect  an  institution  con- 
demned by  the  opinion  of  the  world,  and  the  danger  of  plunging 
the  country  into  fratricidal  war.  They  also  found  it  effective  to 
cast  aspersions  upon  the  motives  of  the  secessionist  leaders,  to 
represent  them  as  restless  spirits,  broken  down  politicians,  dis- 
appointed in  their  political  ambitions. 

Northern  men  contributed  but  little  to  a  true  understanding  of 
the  causes  of  the  disparity  of  the  sections  in  prosperity  and 
progress,  and  of  the  effect  which  a  division  of  the  Union  might 
have  upon  the  great  material  interests  of  the  country;  such  an 

which  were  written  before  Lincoln's  election.    But  see  Victor  S.  Clark  in   The 
South  in  the  Building  of  the  Nation,  V,  323. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  78,  79,  773.  778. 

"Ibid.,  XXX,  217. 

"Ibid.,  XXIX,  79,  495. 


196     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84<>l86l    [196 

understanding,  it  is  believed,  would  have  tended  to  allay  disunion 
sentiment.  Northern  men  were  not  as  well  informed  as  they 
should  have  been  of  the  number  of  disunionists  per  se  in  the 
South,  nor  of  the  arguments  they  advanced.  Practically  all  of  the 
discussions  dealing  with  disunion  were  colored  by  partisan  bias. 
As  we  have  seen,  representatives  of  those  business  interests  of  the 
East  which  were  closely  allied  with  the  cotton  power  exaggerated 
the  value  of  the  Southern  connection  and  the  injurious  effects  of 
disunion  upon  the  North.  They  sought  to  fix  the  guilt  for  en- 
dangering the  Union  upon  the  Northern  "fanatics"  who  were 
agitating  the  slavery  question.  Republican  and  anti-slavery 
writers  and  oraters,  who,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  not  trying 
to  win  converts  in  the  South  but  to  build  up  a  great  party  in  the 
North,  dealt  with  disunionism  in  a  variety  of  ways.  They  de- 
nounced as  mercenary  those  who  would  calculate  the  value  of  the 
Union  in  dollars.  They  commonly  charged  that  threats  of  dis- 
union were  mere  gasconade  for  the  purpose  of  frightening  North- 
ern men  into  voting  for  Southern  measures.  They  often,  also,  as 
did  William  H.  Seward  in  his  great  speeches  during  the  campaign 
of  1860,  protrayed  the  magnitude  of  Northern  productions  and 
Northern  internal  commerce  as  compared  with  the  products  ex- 
changed between  the  sections,  and  minimized  the  value  of  the 
Southern  trade  and  Southern  raw  materials  to  the  North  and  the 
injury  which  would  be  inflicted  upon  Northern  interests  by  dis- 
union.51 Senator  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  said  cotton  was  not 
king;  cotton  made  but  one-seventeenth  part  of  the  manufactures 
of  the  North.52  The  Republicans,  and  anti-slavery  men  generally, 
attributed  the  "decline"  of  the  South  and  its  dependence  upon  the 
North  chiefly  to  the  blighting  effects  of  slavery;  they  saw  no  hope 
of  remedy  so  long  as  slavery  continued  to  exist.53 

"In  a  speech  at  Palace  Garden,  New  York  City,  Nov.  2,  1860,  he  said: 
"New  York  is  not  a  province  of  Virginia  or  Carolina,  any  more  than  it  is  a 
province  of  New  York  or  Connecticut.  New  York  must  be  the  metropolis  of  the 
Continent."  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  3. 

"Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  169,  speech  of  Mar.  20,  1858,  in 
reply  to  J.  H.  Hammond's  "Mud-sill"  speech  of  Mar.  4. 

"The  speech  of  Senator  Wilson  just  quoted  is  a  good  example.  Another  is 
Hannibal  Hamlin's  reply  to  Hammond,  Mar.  8,  II,  1858,  Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong., 
i  Sess.,  1002-1006,  1025-1029. 


197]  THE    DISUNION    MOVEMENT,    1852-1860  197 

Perhaps  the  ablest  and  most  philosophical  exposition  of  moder- 
ate Republicanism  made  between  1854  an<i  J86i  is  George  M. 
Weston's  Progress  of  Slavery,™  a  work  which  it  would  have  been 
well  worth  the  while  of  Southern  thinkers  to  study.  We  are  here 
concerned  only  with  those  of  the  propositions  he  sought  to  es- 
tablish which  relate  to  disunion.  He  told  of  nullification  in  South 
Carolina  and  of  its  partisans  and  sympathizers  in  other  slave 
states.  "The  real  cause  of  this  Southern  predisposition  to  listen 
to  the  appeals  of  the  Palmetto  nullifiers,  was  Southern  discontent 
at  the  prosperity  of  the  North.  .  .  .  Refusing  to  see  the  true 
cause  of  their  own  misfortunes,  and  eager  to  attribute  them  to 
every  cause  but  the  right  one,  they  insisted  that  they  alone  were 
the  real  producers  of  wealth,  and  that  the  North  was  thriving  at 
their  expense."  This  doctrine  of  the  nullifiers  had  been  steadily 
insisted  upon  during  the  following  quarter  of  a  century.  "It  has, 
without  doubt,  become  the  settled  conviction  of  large  numbers  of 
persons  in  the  slave  States,  that  in  some  way  or  other,  either 
through  the  fiscal  regulations  of  the  Government,  or  through  the 
legerdemain  of  trade,  the  North  has  been  built  up  at  the  expense 
of  the  South."55  These  were  the  views  which  prompted  disunion. 
He  illustrated  the  reasons  for  wanting  to  dissolve  the  Union  by  an 
extract  from  a  public  address  of  John  Forsyth,  of  Mobile: 

I  have  no  more  doubt  that  the  effect  of  separation  would  be  to 
transfer  the  energies  of  industry,  population,  commerce,  and 
wealth,  from  the  North  to  the  South,  than  I  have  that  it  is  to  the 
Union  with  us,  the  wealth-producing  States,  that  the  North  owes 
its  great  progress  in  material  prosperity.  .  .  .  The  Union  broken, 
we  should  have  what  has  been  so  long  the  dream  of  the  South — 
direct  trade  and  commercial  independence.  Then,  our  Southern 
cities,  that  have  so  long  languished  in  the  shade,  while  the  grand 
emporia  of  the  North  have  fattened  upon  favoring  navigation  laws, 
partial  legislation  by  Congress,  and  the  monopoly  of  the  public 
expenditure,  will  spring  into  life  and  energy,  and  become  the 
entrepots  of  a  great  commerce.36 

The  slavery  agitation  was  not  the  cause  of  disunion  feeling  but 
the  pretext,  according  to  Weston.  The  disunionists  had  been 
chiefly  instrumental  in  getting  it  up:  "It  is  quite  notorious  that  it 

"Published  in  1858. 
"P.  68. 
"P.  69. 


198      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [198 

is   not  the   slaveholding  class   at  the    South  which   particularly 
favors  nullification." 

The  impoverished  condition  of  the  South,  which  Weston  consid- 
ered the  source  of  the  disunion  feeling,  he  thought  attributable  in 
part  to  slavery  and  in  part  to,  "that  unnatural  diffusion  of  their 
population  over  new  territories,"  which  the  Republican  party  was 
opposing.57  There  were  no  internal  elements  of  change  in  slave 
society.  The  slaves  were  held  to  their  condition  by  force.  The 
masters  were  confined  to  planting  by  the  want  of  flexibility  and 
adaptibility  in  the  character  of  the  labor  which  they  controlled 
and  upon  the  proceeds  of  which  they  subsisted.  The  non-slave- 
holding  whites  were  degraded  by  slavery  with  no  hope  of  escape 
from  their  abject  poverty.58  There  was  no  hope  from  any 
elements  of  such  a  population  of  the  growth  of  towns,  of  the 
mechanic  arts,  or  of  manufacturing  and  commercial  interests. 
"Throughout  the  South,  towns  are  built  up  only  by  Northern  and 
European  immigration,  and  without  it  there  would  be  scarcely  any 
manifestation  of  civilization.  Mills,  railroads,  cotton  presses,  sugar 
boilers,  and  steamboats,  are  mainly  indebted  for  their  existence  in 
the  Southern  States  to  intelligence  and  muscle  trained  in  free 
communities."59  The  redemption  of  the  South  would  come  only 
with  the  gradual  encroachment  of  the  free-labor  system  of  the 
North  and  Europe  and  the  non-slaveholding  regions  of  the  South 
upon  the  slave  belts.  That  encroachment  had  begun,  or  soon 
would  begin.  As  the  slave  area  should  be  contracted,  the  discon- 
tented area  would  also  be  diminished,  and  the  Union  would  be 
strengthened.  "If  the  course  of  events  in  the  immediate  future 
be  such  as  may  reasonably  be  anticipated,  no  separate  Southern 
Confederacy  could  possibly  embrace  more  than  a  few  States  in 
the  southeast  corner  of  the  existing  Union;  and  the  scheme  of  such 
a  Confederacy  would  be  put  down  by  the  good  sense  of  the  people 
in  that  quarter,  if,  indeed,  their  patriotism  would  allow  it  to  be 
even  entertained."60 


"P.  58. 
"P.  13- 
"P.  15. 

T.  70. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT 

WITH  THE  SOUTH'S  ECONOMIC  SYSTEM, 

1850-1860 

During  the  decade  1850-1860  there  were  factors  and  conditions 
whose  tendency  was  to  make  the  people  of  the  South  better  con- 
tent with  their  economic  system  and  position.  These  factors  were 
in  part  economic,  in  part  political  and  social.  The  economic 
factors  tended  also,  in  part — not  altogether,  to  allay  Southern 
sectionalism.  That  on  the  whole  sectional  feeling  increased  during 
the  period  was  due,  in  the  main,  to  other  and  stronger  factors. 

Southern  agriculture  was  comparatively  prosperous  during  the 
decade.  This  was  especially  true  of  the  cotton  planting  industry. 
During  the  decade  of  1840-1850  the  average  price  of  cotton  at 
Southern  seaports  was  8  cents;1  during  the  following  decade  it  was 
10.6  cents.2  The  price  was  steadier  also  during  the  later  period. 
The  higher  price  level  was  maintained  in  spite  of  a  rather  remark- 
able succession  of  large  crops  from  1851  to  1861.  The  average 
yearly  production  during  the  first  decade  was  2,155,400  bales, 
and  during  the  second,  3,374,100  bales,3  an  increase  of  over  56 
per  cent,  while  the  total  value  of  the  cotton  produced  during  the 
latter  period  was  about  double  that  of  the  former.  The  crop  of 
1852-1853,  the  largest  to  that  time,  brought  cotton  planters  nearly 
$150,000,000.  This  crop  was  exceeded  both  in  amount  and  ag- 
gregate value  by  that  of  1855-1856.  A  considerably  smaller  crop 
the  following  year  brought  in  an  even  greater  aggregate,  which  was 
exceeded  the  next  year,  although  the  financial  crash  of  1857  cost 
the  planters  many  millions.  The  high-water  mark  of  the  ante- 
bellum cotton  industry  was  reached  in  1859-1860,  when  a  crop 
of  4,861,000  bales  was  sold  for  nearly  $250,000,000. 

The  tobacco  and  sugar  industries  were  almost  as  prosperous. 
As  a  result  of  the  development  of  improved  varieties  and  better 
methods  of  curing,  the  demand  for  tobacco  increased,  and  produc- 
tion in  the  United  States  grew  from  200,000,000  pounds  in  1849 

*C.  F.  M'Cay,  of  Georgia,  in  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXIII,  602. 
*DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  106.  The  increase  was  due  in  part  to  an  expand- 
ing money  supply. 

"Donnell,  History  of  Cotton,  passim. 

199 


2OO     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [2OO 

to  434,000,000  in  1859,  about  124  per  cent.  In  Virginia  and  Ken- 
tucky, the  leading  tobacco-producing  states,  the  production  was 
doubled,  while  in  North  Carolina  it  was  tripled.4  Although  the 
tobacco  growers  continued  to  complain  of  the  heavy  duties  im- 
posed by  foreign  countries  upon  American  tobacco,5  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  industry  was  more  prosperous  during  the 
decade  before  the  Civil  War  than  in  any  other  period  since 
colonial  times.  The  sugar  industry  was  a  somewhat  uncertain  one. 
The  crop  fluctuated  widely  from  year  to  year  because  of  occasional 
early  frosts  and  other  unfavorable  weather  conditions.  The  price 
fluctuated  even  more  widely,  being  dependent  not  only  upon  the 
crop  in  the  United  States  and  the  tariff,  but  also  upon  the  crop  in 
Cuba  and  Hayti,  whence  sugar  was  imported.6  In  1856  the  crop 
in  Louisiana,  which  produced  virtually  all  of  the  United  States 
sugar,  was  only  73,976  hogsheads,  and  sold  for  $110  per  hogshead. 
In  1858  the  crop  was  362,296  hogsheads,  and  the  price  $69. 
However,  the  industry  seems  to  have  been  more  prosperous  from 
1850  to  1860  than  during  the  previous  decade.  The  average  price 
was  $63,  and  the  average  crop  273,450  hogsheads  from  1850-1860; 
the  same  items  for  1840-1850  were  $49.75  and  165,150  hogsheads 
respectively.7 

It  was  an  axiom  in  the  South  that  when  the  planting  sections 
were  prosperous,  the  grain-growing  and  stock-raising  regions  were 
also  prosperous.  In  the  decade  before  the  war  their  prosperity  was 
enhanced  by  the  readier  access  to  market  which  improved  roads 
and  newly  built  railroads  afforded.  At  the  same  time  competition 
with  the  agricultural  states  of  the  Northwest  was  rendered  less 
injurious  because  prices  were  kept  up  by  the  growing  demand  of 
the  East  and  Europe  for  foodstuffs.8 

*Meyer  Jacobstein,  The  Tobacco  Industry  in  the  United  States,  38-39; 
Eighth  Census,  Agriculture,  Introduction,  pp.  xcvi-xcvii. 

*"Barbarossa,"  The  Lost  Principle,  176  ff.;  memorial  to  Congress,  by  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention,  Knoxville,  in  DeBow's  Review, 
XXIV,  291-300,  Apr.  1858;  ibid.,  XXVI,  315. 

'Ibid.,  XIX,  353,  XXII,  320-25,  433-36;  Robertson,  A  Tew  Months  in 
America,  88;  Stirling,  Letters  from  the  Slave  States,  182. 

7DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  524;  Eighth  Census,  Agriculture,  Introduction, 
xcix. 

'Ibid.,  cxli,  cxlvi-cxlix  (tables  illustrating  growth  of  trade  between  the  West 
and  the  East  and  Europe). 


2Ol]  FACTORS   WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  2OI 

The  growing  degree  of  content  with  the  rewards  of  the  cotton 
industry  was  reflected  in  the  increased  frequency  of  expressions 
of  fear  for  the  security  of  America's  monopoly  of  the  production 
of  raw  cotton.  Livingston  was  said  to  have  reported  that  cotton 
grew  in  the  interior  of  Africa.9  Attention  was  given  to  the  possi- 
bility that  India  might  be  stimulated  to  increased  production. 
Much  interest  was  taken  in  the  Cotton  Supply  Association,  which 
was  organized  in  1857  by  English  spinners  for  the  purpose  of 
stimulating  cotton  production  in  India  and  elsewhere.10 

It  has  always  been  true  in  the  South  that  when  cotton  prices 
have  risen  pleas  for  the  diversification  of  agriculture  have  fallen 
upon  deaf  ears;  so  it  was  during  the  decade  before  the  War.  The 
agricultural  reformers  in  the  cotton  belt  pleaded  with  the  planters 
not  to  make  more  cotton,  but  to  raise  their  own  hogs,  cattle, 
horses,  and  mules,  and  to  grow  their  own  corn  and  wheat — thus 
they  would  cut  down  expenses  and  conserve  the  fertility  of  the 
soil.  The  reformers  told  the  planters  that  the  high  prices  were 
only  temporary,  and  were  caused  in  part  by  the  increased  gold 
supply  resulting  from  the  opening  of  the  California  mines.11  The 
rise  in  the  price  of  cotton  was  no  greater  than  the  rise  in  the 
prices  of  other  things.12  A  small  cotton  crop,  they  said,  and 
truly,  often  brought  a  greater  aggregate  than  a  large  one.  But 
planters  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  take  advantage  of 
prevailing  high  prices  by  increasing  their  acreage.13  Somewhat 
better  transportation  facilities  between  the  planting  and  the  farm- 
ing regions  promoted  the  tendency  to  specialization.  The  agri- 
culture of  the  planting  belts  was  no  more  diversified,  if  as  much, 
in  1860  than  in  1850. 

The  sugar  and  cotton  planters  seem  to  have  resorted,  to  no 
diminishing  extent,  to  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and  states 

'DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  580;  Donnell,  History  of  Cotton,  466. 

"Donnell,  op.  cit.,  454,  466,  478;  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XLIII,  640. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XIV,  280. 

"Address  of  A.  P.  Aldrich  at  the  fair  of  the  South  Carolina  Institute,  1859, 
Charleston  Mercury,  Nov.  19,  1858. 

"'The  price  of  cotton  has  raised  the  price  of  land,  so  there  is  no  chance  of 
buying  you  a  cleared  plantation  now.  And  during  such  prices  it  would  be  folly 
to  take  hands  from  making  cotton  in  Baldwin  to  clear  the  place  in  Dooly,  so  we 
shall  have  to  let  planting  affairs  remain  in  'statu  quo.' "  John  B.  Lamar  to 
Howell  Cobb,  Feb.  7,  1850,  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence. 


202      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [2O2 

even  farther  north  for  horses  and  mules,  hay,  bacon,  pork,  and 
beef,  and  even  corn  and  flour.  "There  is  no  reason,"  wrote  a 
planter,  "why  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  Mississippi,  Alabama, 
Georgia,  and  Texas  should  not  raise  all  of  their  own  horses  and 
mules.  There  is  no  earthly  reason  why  these  states  should  not 
also  raise  all  their  own  corn,  hogs,  cows,  etc."14  James  L.  Orr 
described  the  planter  of  South  Carolina  as  buying  his  bacon  and 
pork,  much  of  his  beef,  and  not  infrequently  his  corn  and  flour.15 
Robert  Russell,  an  English  traveler,  writing  of  the  planters  of 
Mississippi,  said,  "The  bacon  is  almost  entirely  imported  from  the 
Northern  States,  as  well  as  a  considerable  quantity  of  Indian 
corn."16 

Exports  of  Western  produce  from  New  Orleans  to  the  North 
and  to  Europe  fell  off  very  rapidly  after  the  building  of  railroads 
from  the  North  Atlantic  ports  to  the  West;  but  there  was  no 
falling  off  in  the  total  receipts  of  Western  products  at  New 
Orleans.17  This  was  due  in  part  to  the  increased  demands  of  New 
Orleans  herself,  in  part  to  the  increased  demands  of  the  South 
generally.  Of  1,084,978  barrels  of  flour  received  at  New  Orleans 
in  1858-1859,  306,090  were  exported  to  Northern  ports,  133,193  to 
foreign  countries,  and  165,397  to  other  Southern  ports.18  The  fol- 
lowing year'  965,860  barrels  of  flour  were  received  at  New 
Orleans,  of  which  58,739  went  to  the  North,  80,541  abroad,  and 
247,231  to  other  Southern  ports.19  The  statistics  for  corn,  bacon, 
pork,  and  other  articles  produced  north  of  the  planting  belt  show 
similar  proportions.  Moreover,  only  a  portion  of  the  Western 
provisions  shipped  down  the  Mississippi  reached  New  Orleans.  For 
example,  of  92,919  barrels  of  flour  shipped  from  Cincinnati  in 

"DeBow's  Review,  XIX,  229. 

"Ibid.,  XIX,  21  (July,  1855). 

"North  America,  265,  290. 

"Eighth  Census,  Agriculture,  Intro.,  clvi,  clvii,  Tables  N  and  0;  DeBow's 
Review,  IV,  391;  V!,  434;  X,  448;  XII,  83;  XVII,  530;  XXIII,  365;  XXV,  469; 
XXVII,  471-479.  "As  an  outlet  to  the  ocean  for  the  grain  trade  of  the  west,  the 
Mississippi  river  has  almost  ceased  to  be  depended  upon  by  merchants."  "And 
even,  at  no  distant  date,  all  the  western  grain  and  flour  which  found  a  market 
in  New  York  or  New  England  was  shipped  to  New  Orleans  in  steamboats,  and 
thence  around  the  coast  in  ocean  ships."  Eighth  Census,  Agriculture,  Intro.,  clvii, 
civ. 

"Ibid.,  Intro.,  clvii;  DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  479. 

"Ibid.,  XXIX,  784;  Eighth  Census,  Agriculture,  Intro.,  clvii. 


203]  FACTORS   WHICH   TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  2O3 

1860  to  points  below  Cairo,  only  35,146  went  to  New  Orleans.20 
By  1860  the  railroads  were  carrying  no  inconsiderable  amounts  of 
provisions  from  the  West  and  the  farming  sections  of  the  South 
into  the  planting  sections.21 

A  comparison  of  the  census  reports  for  1850  and  1860  indicates 
that  the  agriculture  of  the  South  as  a  whole  was  less  diversified 
in  the  latter  than  in  the  former  year.  It  is  sufficient  to  compare 
such  large  items  as  cotton,  tobacco,  corn,  wheat,  oats,  potatoes, 
hogs,  sheep,  cattle,  and  draught  animals.22  The  per  capita  produc- 
tion of  Indian  corn  in  the  South  was  33  bushels  in  1840,  32.75 
bushels  in  1850,  and  31  bushels  in  1860.  The  population  of  the 
South  increased  23.9  per  cent  between  1850  and  1860;  during 
the  same  time  the  annual  production  of  cotton  had  been  doubled 
and  of  tobacco  more  than  doubled.  In  the  leading  cotton  state, 
Mississippi,  the  cotton  crop  was  increased  150  per  cent,  and  the 
corn  crop,  32  per  cent.  The  percentages  for  Alabama  were  73 
and  18,  for  Louisiana  336  and  65,  and  for  Georgia  41  and  o. 
South  Carolina  produced  less  corn  but  17  per  cent  more  cotton  in 
1860  than  in  1850.  Tennessee,  the  leading  corn  state  of  the 
South,  grew  no  more  corn  in  1860  than  in  1850,  but  had  increased 
her  cotton  crop  by  one-half.  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  gained 
but  little  in  corn  produced;  but  tobacco  production  had  been 
doubled  in  the  one  and  tripled  in  the  other.  During  the  decade 
the  annual  oats  crop  had  declined  in  every  Southern  state  except 
Virginia  and  Texas;  for  the  South  as  a  whole  the  falling  off  was 
over  40  per  cent.  In  1850  the  Southern  states  produced  4.87 
bushels  of  sweet  potatoes  per  capita;  in  1860,  4.16  bushels.  There 
were  fewer  hogs  in  the  South  in  1860  than  in  1850;  the  leading 
hog-raising  states,  Tennessee  and  Georgia,  showed  decreases, 
while  Virginia,  Texas,  and  Arkansas  showed  increases.  Outside 
Texas  there  were  fewer  neat  cattle  in  the  South  in  1860  than  in 
1850.  The  number  of  milch  cows,  however,  increased  20  per  cent; 
and  the  production  of  butter  increased  from  6.12  to  6.55  pounds 
per  capita.  The  number  of  sheep  had  increased  less  than  10  per 
cent,  and  the  wool  clip  but  18.  The  statistics  for  hogs,  neat  cattle, 
and  sheep  may  be  contrasted  with  those  for  draught  animals, 

""Eighth  Census,  Agriculture,  Intro.,  clviii. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  214. 

"Eighth  Census,  Agriculture,  Intro.,  passim. 


2O4     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [204 

which  were  employed  in  the  culture  of  the  staples.  The  number 
of  mules,  oxen,  and  horses  increased  between  1850  and  1860  by 
103,  42,  and  22  per  cent  respectively.  The  only  important  food 
stuff  of  which  there  was  a  remarkable  increase  of  production  was 
wheat.  The  crop  was  17,795,761  bushels  in  1850  and  31,441,826 
bushels  in  1860,  a  gain  of  77  per  cent  and  an  increase  from  2.5  to 
3.5  bushels  per  capita.  The  largest  gains  were  made  in  Tennessee, 
North  Carolina,  and  Georgia;  they  were  attributable  very  largely 
to  the  building  of  railroads  which  gave  access  to  market  to  the 
farmers  of  eastern  Tennessee,  western  North  Carolina,  upper 
Georgia,  and  north  Alabama. 

As  the  great  staple  industries  became  more  profitable,  a 
tendency  was  manifested  to  boast  of  the  prosperity  of  the  South, 
to  proclaim  her  strength  rather  than  her  dependence,  and  to 
glorify  agriculture  and  assert  its  superiority  to  other  industries  in 
every  respect — in  productivity,  in  the  development  of  individual 
character  and  strength,  as  the  conservator  of  the  moral  and  social 
order,  as  a  guarantee  of  the  permanence  of  republican  institutions, 
and  as  a  basis  for  the  political  power  of  a  nation. 

Planters  had  long  complained  that  they  were  at  the  mercy  of 
the  "money  power,"  the  Bank  of  England  or  combinations  of 
speculators  and  spinners,  who  took  advantage  of  the  necessity  of 
cotton  planters  to  realize  quickly  upon  their  cotton  in  order  to  pay 
advances  they  had  received  while  their  crop  was  growing.  As 
late  as  October,  1851,  a  cotton  planters'  convention  at  Macon, 
Georgia,  published  a  scheme  for  organizing  the  planters  to  keep 
up  the  price  of  cotton.23  Later  in  the  decade,  with  demand  out- 
running production,  the  "law  of  supply  and  demand"  seemed 
sufficient  guarantee  against  exploitation.  "Cotton  has  outlived 
and  outgrown  the  influence  of  the  money  power  of  the  Bank  of 
England,"  wrote  a  contributor  to  DeBow's.  "Many  years  since, 
Mr.  Van  Buren  .  .  .  said  that  a  combination  of  the  Bank  of 
England  'diminished  the  value  of  every  man's  property  in 
America.'  This  was  particularly  true  at  the  South,  .  .  .  That 
plan  was  tried  to  check  the  rising  values  in  1856  and  1857;  but 
for  the  first  time  without  success.  .  .  .  The  combinations  of 
spinners  are  of  no  avail;  the  manufacturing  wants  exceed  the 

"DeBow's  Review,  XII,  110,  121-6,  275-80. 


2O5]  FACTORS   WHICH   TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  2O5 

power  of  the  South."24  There  were  even  signs  of  a  breaking  away 
from  the  deplorable  system  of  advances  to  planters;  and  certain  it 
is  that  the  advances  came  more  frequently  from  home  banks  and 
less  frequently  from  foreign  factors  than  formerly.25  The  South 
was  beginning  to  accumulate  the  capital  with  which  to  market  her 
staples. 

There  was  reason  for  self-congratulation  also  in  the  way  the 
South  came  through  the  financial  crash  of  1857.  The  South  was 
not  as  hard  hit  as  the  West  and  North,  and,  because  of  large  crops 
at  good  prices,  recovered  more  rapidly.26  Southern  merchants 
paid  their  debts  in  Eastern  cities  as  usual  in  1858;"  and  Eastern 
merchants  were  induced  to  seek  purchasers  in  the  South  rather 
than  in  the  West.28  Never  before  had  Southern  banks  held  so 
large  a  proportion  of  the  nation's  specie  as  in  1858,  1859,  and 
i86o.29  This  favorable  balance  may  have  been  due  in  some  degree 
to  smaller  purchases  of  Northern  and  foreign  goods  after  the  panic, 
and,  possibly,  to  a  partial  carrying  out  of  threats  of  non-inter- 
course in  retaliation  for  Northern  "aggressions";  but  the  chief 
explanation  lies  in  the  unusual  sums  realized  from  the  crops  of 
those  years. 

Formerly  when  comparisons  had  been  made  between  the  slave- 
holding  and  the  free  states,  Southern  men  had  generally  been  con- 
tent to  trace  "  'Southern  decay'  to  other  causes  than  Slavery  which 
in  fact  is  all  that  saves  us."30  In  1849  Ellwood  Fisher,  of  Cin- 
cinnati, in  a  lecture  there,  maintained,  "in  opposition  to  the  exist- 
ing opinion  on  the  subject,"  that  the  "South  is  greatly  the  superior 
of  the  North  in  wealth  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  their 


"DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  107.  "Cotton  is  king.  The  Bank  of  England  was 
until  lately,  but  the  last  time  she  tried  to  put  on  the  screws  she  failed."  J.  H. 
Hammond  in  the  Senate,  Mar.  4,  1858,  Cong.  Globe,  35  Cong.,  I  Sess.,  961. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  107;  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XLII,  157; 
Charleston  Courier,  Nov.  5,  1860. 

~*DeBow's  Review,  XXVI,  92,  582,  quoting  the  United  States  Economist. 

"Charleston  Mercury,  Mar.  n,  1858,  quoting  the  New  York  Herald;  Hunt's 
Merchants'  Magazine,  XXXVIII,  583. 

"Ibid.,  XLII,  70;  DeBow's  Review,  XXVI,  583. 

"Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXXIX,  459;  XLII,  157;  XLIII,  455. 

*°J.  H.  Hammond  to  Calhoun,  Aug.  18,  1845,  Calhoun  Correspondence. 


2O6     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [206 

citizens  respectively."31  This  proposition  he  sought  to  demonstrate 
by  a  formidable  array  of  miscellaneous  statistics  ingeniously 
arranged.  Both  the  thesis  and  the  method  of  demonstration  were 
comparatively  new  to  the  South.  J.  H.  Hammond,  reviewing  the 
lecture  for  the  Southern  Quarterly  Review,  said:  "It  will  be  per- 
ceived ....  that  Mr.  Fisher  strikes  out  into  a  bold  and  to  most 
persons  we  doubt  not  an  entirely  new  train  of  facts  and  arguments 
in  his  discussion  of  this  subject."32  He  refuted  some  of  Fisher's 
arguments.  Fisher's  lecture,  however,  was  well  received  in  the 
South.33  Both  his  conclusions  and  method  were  followed  with  in- 
creasing frequency  in  succeeding  years,  chiefly,  no  doubt,  because 
slavery  must  be  defended,  but  partly  because  the  economic  posi- 
tion of  the  South  seemed  to  justify  doing  so.  Alexander  H. 
Stephens  defended  slavery  by  demonstrating  the  superiority  of 
the  slave  state  of  Georgia  over  the  free  state  of  Ohio  in  prosper- 
ity and  all  other  respects  in  which  abolitionists  were  wont  to  make 
invidious  comparisons.34  B.  F.  Stringfellow  used  Fisher's  method 
in  his  pamphlet,  Negro  Slavery  No  Evil,  as  did  many  other  less 
able  defenders  of  the  institution. 

The  arguments  of  those  who  would  diversify  Southern  industry 
were  more  frequently  refuted  during  the  few  years  preceding  the 
war  than  before.  This  was  due  in  part  to  improved  economic  con- 
ditions in  the  South,  in  part  to  growing  fears  on  the  part  of  the 
dominant  social  class  that  diversification  would  tend  to  undermine 
the  existing  social  order,  and  in  part  to  the  political  situation. 
"For  fifty  years,"  wrote  George  Fitzhugh,  "she  [the  South]  has 
been  more  usefully,  more  industriously,  more  energetically,  and 
more  profitably  employed  than  any  people  under  the  sun.  Yet  all 
the  while  she  has  been  envying  and  wishing  to  imitate  the  little 
'truck  patches,'  the  filthy,  crowded,  licentious  factories,  the  mer- 
cenary shopkeeping,  and  the  slavish  commerce  of  the  North."35 

n Lecture  on  the  North  and  the  South,  delivered  before  the  Young  Men's 
Mercantile  Library  Association,  of  Cincinnati,  1849  (pamphlet),  p.  7.  The  lec- 
ture is  in  DeBow's  Review,  VII,  134  ff.,  262  ff. 

"Southern  Quarterly  Review,  XV,  276. 

**DeBow's  Review,  VII,  134.  Fisher  was  made  editor  of  the  Southern  Press, 
a  short-lived  organ  established  in  Washington,  1849,  by  Southern  members  of 
Congress. 

"Cleveland,  Alexander  H.  Stephens  in  Public  and  Private,  429-32;  432-59. 
Review,  XXIII,  587. 


FACTORS   WHICH   TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  2O/ 

The  Montgomery  Daily  Confederation,  a  conservative  organ,  pro- 
tested against  the  doctrines  which  found  favor  in  the  Southern 
Commercial  Convention:  "That  the  North  does  our  trading  and 
manufacturing  mostly  is  true,  and  we  are  willing  that  they 
should.  Ours  is  an  agricultural  people,  and  God  grant  that  we 
may  continue  so.  We  never  want  to  see  it  otherwise.  It  is  the 
freest,  happiest,  most  independent,  and,  with  us,  the  most  power- 
ful condition  on  earth."30  Those  who  attended  the  Southern 
Commercial  Convention  and  interested  themselves  in  schemes  for 
the  regeneration  of  the  South  made  much  of  the  argument  that 
commercial  and  industrial  independence  would  augment  the 
political  power  of  the  South  and  enable  the  Southern  people  to 
better  defend  their  rights  and  interests.  But  the  majority  seem  to 
have  preferred  to  stake  the  security  of  Southern  rights  and  inter- 
ests upon  the  efficacy  of  the  "cotton  is  king"  argument,  and  the 
"cotton  is  king"  argument  arose  from  the  fact  that  the  people  of 
the  South  were  chiefly  engaged  in  producing  a  few  great  staples 
for  export. 

Frequent  reference  has  been  made  in  former  chapters  to  the 
use  of  this  argument  in  some  form  or  other.  It  may  be  briefly 
recapitulated:  The  South  produced  an  immense  surplus  for  export 
of  great  staples,  particularly  cotton,  which  had  become  necessities 
for  millions  of  people  the  world  over,  supported  a  large  part  of  the 
commerce  and  trade  of  the  world,  constituted  the  raw  material  for 
factories  in  England  and  America  employing  millions  of  capital 
and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  hands,  and  furnished  the  basis  for 
American  credit  in  Europe.  With  the  return  from  their  staples  the 
Southern  people  purchased  manufactured  goods  from  the  North 
and  from  Europe  and  provisions  from  the  West,  whose  production, 
sale,  and  transportation  gave  employment  to  factories,  farmers, 
shippers,  and  merchants.  When  one  computes  the  capital  and 
labor  dependent  either  directly  or  indirectly  upon  the  production 
and  export  of  Southern  staples,  he  has  a  stupendous  total,  and 
the  Southerner  was  only  too  prone  to  exaggerate  the  part  his  cot- 
ton played  in  keeping  the  wheels  of  the  world's  industry  in  motion. 
And  cotton  and  negro  slavery  were  said  to  be  synonymous:  the 
South  had  a  monopoly  of  the  world's  cotton  supply;  only  negroes 
held  in  slavery  could  make  the  great  crops  of  cotton;  therefore, 

"May  19,  1858.   See  also  above,  pp.  50-58,  and  below,  pp.  222-23. 


208      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 8401 86 1    [208 

destroy  slavery  and  the  mighty  structure  reared  upon  it  would 
come  down  with  a  crash.37  Also,  as  long  as  the  sections  were  de- 
pendent upon  each  other,  the  South  had  at  hand  a  powerful 
political  weapon  in  the  form  of  threats  to  limit  the  cotton  supply, 
to  manufacture  it  herself,  to  conduct  her  own  commerce,  to  adopt 
a  policy  of  non-intercourse,  to  secede,  to  do  anything,  in  short, 
which  would  injure  interests  elsewhere,  the  prosperity  and  perma- 
nence of  which  depended  upon  the  continuance  of  existing  com- 
mercial relationships  between  the  sections.  Furthermore,  those  who 
desired  disunion  or  believed  it  inevitable  could  plausibly  argue  that 
secession  would  be  peaceful:  the  interruption  of  Southern  trade 
and  the  cutting  off  of  the  cotton  supply,  which  war  would  cause, 
would  so  prostrate  Northern  industry  that  the  section  would  be 
incapable  of  waging  war;  England  and  France  would  not  tolerate 
a  war  which  might  involve  the  interruption  of  their  supply  of  cot- 
ton. A  Southern  confederacy  once  established,  they  could  further 
argue,  cotton  would  be  the  power  which  would  preserve  the 
peace  and  secure  favorable  commercial  treaties. 

It  is  apparent  that  the  continued  potency  of  the  "cotton  is  king" 
argument  depended  upon  the  South's  remaining  exclusively  agri- 
cultural; to  the  extent  the  Southern  people  should  become 
industrially  and  commercially  independent  the  argument  would 
lose  force.  George  Fitzhugh  wrote:  "Indeed,  the  South  will 
commit  a  fatal  blunder,  if,  in  its  haste  to  become  nominally  inde- 
pendent, it  loses  its  present  engines  of  power,  and  thereby  ceases 
to  be  really  independent  ....  It  is  our  great  agricultural  surplus 
that  gives  us  power,  commands  respect,  and  secures  inde- 
pendence. . .  ,"38  It  is  apparent  also  that  for  the  "cotton  is  king" 
argument  to  be -an  entirely  satisfactory  one  from  the  Southern 

'"'It  seems,  indeed,  when  the  whole  of  the  facts  brought  together  are  con- 
sidered, that  American  slavery,  though  of  little  force  unaided,  yet  properly  sus- 
tained, is  the  great  central  power,  or  energizing  influence,  not  only  of  nearly 
all  the  industrial  interests  of  our  own  country,  but  also  all  of  those  of  Great 
Britain  and  much  of  the  continent;  and  that,  if  stricken  from  existence,  the 
whole  of  those  interests,  with  the  advancing  civilization  of  the  age,  would  receive 
a  shock  that  must  retard  their  progress  for  years  to  come."  Christy,  Cotton  is 
King  (second  edition)  163. 

**DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  341  (Dec.,  1857).  Fitzhugh  found  reason  soon 
to  change  his  opinions  somewhat. 


209]  FACTORS   WHICH   TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT 

point  of  view,  the  agricultural  system  upon  which  it  was  based 
must  be  satisfactory  to  the  Southern  people. 

Southern  statesmen  and  politicians  had  long  used  the  "cotton  is 
king"  argument  in  one  form  or  another  without  reserve  and  with 
considerable  effect.  During  the  crisis  of  1850,  for  example,  it  ap- 
peared in  the  frequent  calculations  of  the  value  of  the  Union.  But 
at  no  time  did  cotton  seem  more  powerful,  and  the  Southern 
people  more  inclined  to  exult  in  it  and  wield  it  as  an  instrument 
of  political  power,  than  during  the  several  years  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  Civil  War.  After  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill,  Professor  Christy,  of  Ohio,  published  a  very  ingenious  volume 
entitled,  Cotton  is  King,  one  of  whose  theses  was  that  an  alliance 
had  been  struck  between  the  planters  of  the  South  and  the  pro- 
ducers of  provisions  in  the  Northwest.39  But  it  was  chiefly  to  the 
industrial  and  commercial  centers  of  the  North  that  the  appeal  was 
made.  Jefferson  Davis, .speaking  to  a  Boston  audience  in  Faneuil 
Hall,  said:  "Your  interest  is  to  remain  a  manufacturing,  and  ours 
to  remain  an  agricultural  people.  Your  prosperity,  then,  is  to 
receive  our  staple  and  to  manufacture  it,  and  ours  to  sell  it  to 
you  and  buy  the  manufactured  goods."40  John  B.  Floyd  said  in 
New  York:  "I  rejoice  that  the  great  staples  of  the  South  are  the 
chief  means  by  which  your  commerce  is  fostered,  and  your 
mechanics  and  artisans  kept  constantly  at  work."41  During  the 
campaigns  of  1856  and  1860  Southern  orators  were  sent  to 
Northern  cities.  R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  Robert  J.  Walker,  Henry  W. 
Hilliard,  Herschel  V.  Johnson,  and  even  William  L.  Yancey  were 
all  adept  in  appealing  to  the  business  interests.42 

Nor  did  these  appeals  to  interest  fail  to  raise  up  powerful  allies 
for  the  South  in  the  North — the  "Northern  men  with  Southern 
principles."  Leading  journals  closely  identified  with  the  business 
interests,  such  as  the  New  York  Herald,  the  New  York  Express, 
the  Boston  Post,  the  Boston  Courier,  and  the  Philadelphia  Atlas, 
defended  the  South  and  slavery  and  described  the  dire  effects  upon 
the  North  of  goading  the  Southern  states  into  non-intercourse  or 

Tp.  144  ff.,  especially. 

*°Mrs.  Varina  Davis,  Jefferson  Dazis,  I,  630. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXI,  604. 

4tlbid.,  XXI,  53038;  589-602;  Hilliard,  Politics  and  Pen  Pictures,  294-302; 
New  York  Herald,  Sept.  22,  Oct.  n,  1860,  speeches  of  Yancey  in  Washington 
and  New  York. 


2IO     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [210 

secession.  Slavery  had  its  defenders  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the 
schools.  Northern  politicians  friendly  to  the  South  were  not 
courting  Southern  popularity  only.  So  effective  was  cotton  as  an 
argument  for  slavery  that  optimistic  men  from  time  to  time 
detected  a  "returning  sense  of  justice"  in  the  North  and  a  change 
in  the  attitude  of  the  people  of  England  and  France  toward 
slavery.43 

The  improved  condition  of  Southern  agriculture  in  the  fifties  was 
reflected  in,  and  gave  rise  to,  a  somewhat  different  aspect  of  the 
labor  problem.  Between  1840  and  1850  when  prices  of  cotton 
and  slaves  were  low,  the  feeling  was  pretty  strong  throughout  the 
South  that  there  was  a  redundancy  of  labor  engaged  in  the  culture 
of  cotton.  Planters  welcomed  suggestions  that  slaves  be  diverted 
from  cultivating  cotton  to  other  labor.  The  possibility  of  employ- 
ing them  in  factories  and  in  the  construction  of  internal  improve- 
ments was  canvassed.  The  experiment  was  tried  in  both  fields, 
and  in  the  latter,  at  least,  proved  successful.44  In  the  next  decade 
the  prosperity  of  Southern  agriculture,  especially  cotton  growing, 
and  to  some  extent  the  employment  of  slaves  upon  works  of 
internal  improvement,  created  a  strong  demand  for  labor.  Prices 
of  slaves  rose  to  unprecedented  figures.  A  contributor  to  DeBow's, 
1856,  said  the  price  of  field  hands  had  nearly  doubled  in  five 
years.45  A  Georgia  delegate  to  the  Southern  Commercial  Conven- 
tion, the  same  year,  said  negroes  were  worth  from  $1000  to  $1500 
each,  and  there  were  ten  purchasers  to  every  seller.46  Frequent 
accounts  of  the  sales  of  slaves  affirm  the  truth  of  these  asser- 
tions.47 The  prices  continued  to  rise  until  secession. 

This  remarkable  rise  in  prices  occurred  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  the  labor  force  engaged  in  the  production  of  cotton  and 
sugar  was  receiving  large  increments  in  addition  to  the  natural 
increase  of  slaves.  Partly  because  of  the  high  prices  offered  for 

"Cleveland,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  647  ff.;  DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  423; 
New  Orleans  Picayune,  Jan.  5,  1858;  J.  H.  Hammond,  speech  at  Beech  Island. 
S.  C.,  July  22,  1858,  in  Charleston  Mercury,  July  27. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  254;  XVII,  76-82;  Phillips,  American  Negro 
Slavery,  375-378. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXI,  158. 

"Ibid.,  XXII,  222. 

47This  subject  is  thoroughly  discussed  in  Phillips,  American  Negro  Slavery, 
373-375,  and  chart,  p.  370. 


21 1]  FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  211 

slaves  by  planters,  and  partly  because  of  the  influx  of  foreigners 
and  the  increasing  difficulty  of  controlling  slaves  in  cities,  the 
slave  population  of  such  large  cities  as  Baltimore,  New  Orleans, 
St.  Louis,  and  Charleston  declined  between  1850  and  1860.  The 
slave  population  of  Charleston  fell  from  19,532  in  1850  to  13,909 
in  1860;  that  of  New  Orleans  declined  from  16,845  to  I3>385, 
notwithstanding  there  was  a  remarkable  increase  in  the  total 
population  of  the  city.48  In  Richmond,  Savannah,  Augusta, 
Columbus,  Memphis,  Nashville,  Mobile,  Natchez,  and  other 
towns  there  was  a  considerable  decline  in  the  proportion  which  the 
slave  population  bore  to  the  white  population.49  Thousands  of 
slaves  were  transferred  each  year  from  the  border  states  and  the 
older  cotton  states  to  Arkansas,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  and 
Texas;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  went  to  the  cotton 
and  sugar  plantations  of  those  states.  Olmsted  estimated  the 
number  of  slaves  annually  sold  south  from  the  northern  slave 
states  at  more  than  2O,ooo.50  Winfield  Collins  estimated  from  the 
reports  of  the  U.  S.  Census  that  during  the  period  1850-1860, 
207,000  slaves  were  transferred  from  the  selling  states,  which  in- 
cluded North  and  South  Carolina,  to  the  buying  states.51  In 
Delaware  and  Maryland  the  slave  population  declined  during  the 
decade.52  In  Virginia  it  increased  only  3.88  per  cent;  in  South 
Carolina,  4.53  per  cent;  in  Kentucky,  6.87  per  cent;  in  North  Caro- 
lina, 14.73  Per  cent;  and  in  Tennessee  but  little  more.  The  increase 
in  the  total  slave  population  of  the  United  States  during  the 
decade  was  23.39  Per  cent,  of  which  at  least  20  per  cent  represented 
natural  increase.  A  by  no  means  inconsiderable  increment  to  the 
labor  force  of  the  planting  belts  of  the  cotton  states  consisted  of 
slaves  imported  from  outside  the  United  States  in  violation  of 
Federal  and  state  laws.  Collins  considers  70,000  a  "moderate  and 
even  low"  estimate  of  the  number  of  slaves  imported  between 
1850  and  i86o.53  DuBois,  in  his  Suppression  of  the  African  Slave 
Trade,  asserts  that  the  laws  against  the  foreign  slave  trade  were 

^Compendium  of  the  Seventh  Census,  passim;  Eighth  Census,  Population, 
passim.   The  slave  populations  of  St.  Louis,  Baltimore,  and  Louisville  were  small. 
"Ibid.;  DeBow's  Review,  XXX,  70. 
""Cotton  Kingdom,  I,  58  n. 
^Domestic  Slave  Trade,  66. 
"Eighth  Census,  Population,  599. 
™0p.  cit.,  20. 


212     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [212 

"nearly  nullified,"  and  that  the  increase  of  illicit  traffic  and  actual 
importations  in  the  decade  1850-1860  may  almost  be  termed  a 
reopening  of  the  slave  trade.54 

But  these  additions  to  the  labor  force  of  the  cotton  and  sugar 
plantations  were  incommensurate  with  the  demand,  and  could  not 
be  made  indefinitely.  Considerable  speculation  was  indulged  in  as 
to  whence  would  come  the  labor  which  would  enable  the  cotton 
planters  to  extend  their  operations  in  the  future,  and  the  South 
to  maintain  her  position  as  the  chief  source  of  the  world's  cotton 
supply.  John  M.  Cordoza,  an  old  and  reliable  commercial  editor 
of  Charleston,  said  the  yearly  increase  in  the  cotton  crop  of  the 
United  States  was  regulated  by  a  fixed  law,  namely,  the  increase 
in  slave  population,  which  was  three  per  cent  per  annum.  True,  pro- 
duction had  been  increasing  at  a  more  rapid  rate  because  of  the 
transfer  of  slaves  from  the  non-cotton  states  to  the  cotton  belt 
and  from  poorer  to  more  fertile  lands  within  the  belt;  but  this 
process  could  not  go  on  indefinitely.  Improved  methods  and  labor 
saving  machinery  could  be  considered  negligible  factors  in  in- 
creasing production.  He  had  no  fear  of  foreign  competition.55 
Other  observers  thought  the  tobacco  and  grain  growing  states  had 
no  redundancy  of  labor,  and  were  unlikely  to  have  "so  long  as 
their  present  prosperity  continues."56  J.  B.  Gribble,  a  New 
Orleans  cotton  factor  who  reviewed  the  trade  for  Hunt's 
Merchants'  Magazine,  believed  that  the  poor  whites  would  be  in- 
duced by  the  high  prices  to  labor;  in  fact  a  change  was  already 
perceptible,  and  soon  many  "small  crops"  would  tell  with  some 
effect  upon  the  aggregate  yield.57  The  United  States  Economist, 
1859,  pictured  the  cotton  states  as  prosperous  and  the  prospects 
for  the  future  of  the  cotton  industry  as  brilliant.  With  the  ad- 
vancing prices  of  slaves  it  would  be  "impossible  to  limit  the  in- 
crease of  supply  to  the  rule  which  now  governs  it,  viz.,  the  natural 
increase  of  hands."  Cultivation  would  be  undertaken  by  whites.58 

About  1856  there  was  begun  a  lively  agitation  in  the  cotton 
states  in  favor  of  the  repeal  of  the  laws  prohibiting  the  foreign 

"Pp.  178,  183. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXII,  337-49  (Apr.,  1857). 

"'Charleston  Mercury,  May  4,   1858,  article  by  P.  A.  Morse,  of  Louisiana. 
The  same  is  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXIII,  480. 
"XXXVII,  554-61. 
"'Quoted  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXVI,  582. 


213]  FACTORS   WHICH   TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  2IJ 

slave  trade;  this  agitation  continued  until  after  secession.  The 
movement  for  the  renewal  of  the  slave  trade  may  be  attributed 
in  part  to  the  demand  of  the  planting  interest  for  a  larger  and 
cheaper  labor  supply;  to  the  extent  this  may  be  done,  the  move- 
ment testifies  to  the  prosperous  condition  of  Southern  agriculture. 
The  movement  and  the  accompanying  discussion  also  brought  out 
clearly  two  divergent  conceptions  of  a  proper  Southern  policy. 
One  looked  to  the  diversification  of  industry,  the  encouragement 
of  white  immigration,  and  the  development  of  free  rather  than 
slave  labor.  In  this  view,  the  future  lay  with  the  white  race; 
and  the  South  had  other  interests  than  slavery.  The  other  con- 
ception of  policy  looked  to  the  preservation  of  a  slave  society 
and  the  plantation  system,  and  was  antagonistic  to  any  changes 
which  might  endanger  the  existing  social  and  economic  order.  A 
study  of  the  movement  for  reopening  the  slave  trade  should  con- 
tribute to  an  understanding  of  this  deep  seated  division  in 
Southern  public  opinion.  The  movement  illustrates  also  the 
growth  of  sectional  feeling  and  disunion  sentiment  and  the 
existence  of  sectional  divisions  in  the  South,  with  their  basis  in 
conflicting  interests. 

As  early  as  1852,  L.  W.  Spratt,  the  editor  of  the  Charleston 
Standard,  advocated  the  reopening  of  the  African  slave  trade.  For 
a  few  years  he  was  almost  alone.  In  the  Southern  Commercial 
Convention,  New  Orleans,  1855,  a  Louisiana  delegate  introduced 
a  resolution  recommending  that  Southern  congressmen  work  for 
the  repeal  of  the  Federal  laws  against  the  slave  trade;  but  the 
resolution  elicited  no  discussion.59  The  first  responsible  leader  to 
publicly  espouse  the  cause  was  Governor  Adams,  of  South  Caro- 
lina. In  his  message  to  the  Legislature,  November,  1856,  he  argued 
at  length  for  revival  of  the  trade,  examining  the  subject  in  all  of 
its  aspects,  economic,  political,  social,  and  moral.00  The  lower 
house  of  the  Legislature  after  a  short  but  animated  debate  referred 
the  governor's  recommendation  to  a  special  committee,  which  was 
permitted  to  defer  its  report  until  the  next  session.  Apparently 
only  a  small  minority  wished  to  agitate  the  subject.61  In  South 
Carolina,  as  elsewhere,  Adams's  recommendation  was  considered 

"DeBow's  Review,  XVIII,  628. 

"Charleston  Daily  Courier,  Nov.  26,  1856. 

°lDeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  364.    Savannah  Republican,  Dec.   15,  19,  1856. 


214     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84OI 86 1    [214 

a  move  to  advance  the  cause  of  disunion.62  The  Savannah 
Republican  had  no  idea  that  it  was  made  in  good  faith,  but  only 
as  the  "handmaid  and  twin  sister  of  Disunion."63  Southern 
leaders  in  Congress  hastened  to  correct  the  impression  which  the 
discussion  in  South  Carolina  was  creating  elsewhere,  and  resolu- 
tions were  introduced  and  adopted  declaring  against  reopening  the 
foreign  slave  trade.64 

But  these  resolutions  failed  to  check  agitation.  The  subject  was 
injected  into  the  proceedings  of  the  Southern  Commercial  Con- 
vention at  Savannah,  December,  1856,  and  the  revival  of  the  trade 
was  favored  by  a  very  aggressive  minority.65  At  Knoxville,  the 
following  year,  the  subject  occupied  the  larger  part  of  the  time  of 
the  convention.66  A  resolution  declaring  that  the  joint  patrol 
article  of  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  1842,  should  be  abrogated, 
was  adopted.  At  the  sessions  of  the  Commercial  Convention  held 
in  Montgomery,  1858,  and  Vicksburg,  1859,  the  foreign  slave 
trade  was  virtually  the  only  subject  discussed.67  At  Vicksburg 
the  convention  adopted  a  resolution  declaring  that  "all  laws,  state 
or  Federal,  prohibiting  the  African  slave  trade,  ought  to  be  re- 
pealed." The  delegates  from  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  and  Arkansas 
formed  an  "African  Labor  Supply  Association,"  of  which  J.  D.  B. 
DeBow  was  made  president.68  The  avowed  purpose  of  the  organ- 
ization was  not,  as  the  name  may  suggest,  to  encourage  the  im- 
portation of  slaves  notwithstanding  the  laws  against  it,  but  to 
conduct  an  agitation  for  their  repeal.69 

Meanwhile  the  question  had  come  before  the  state  legislatures. 
The  Mississippi  Legislature,  1857,  had  before  it  a  plan  to  charter 
the  "African  Labor  Immigration  Company"  authorized  to  bring  in 

"Savannah  Republican,  Dec.  5,  1856;  Daily  National  Intelligencer,  Dec.  2, 
1856. 

"Dec.  6,  1856. 

"Cong.  Globe,  34  Cong.,  3  Sess.,  123-26. 

"Proceedings,  in  Savannah  Republican,  Dec.  9-15,  1856;  Df Bow's  Review, 
XXII,  81-105,  216-24. 

""Proceedings,  in  ibid.,  XXIII,  298-320. 

"Proceedings  of  the  Montgomery  session  are  in  ibid.,  XXIV,  473-491,  574- 
6c6.  Debate  upon  the  slave  trade  is  in  Hodgson,  Cradle  of  the  Confederacy, 
371-392.  Proceedings  of  the  Vicksburg  session  are  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXVII, 
94-103,  205-220,  468-471;  New  York  Herald,  May  18,  21,  1859. 

e*DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  120. 

""Letters,  Yancey  to  DeBow,  DeBow  to  Yancey,  in  ibid.,  XXVII,  231-35. 


215]  FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  215 

negroes  as  "apprentices."70  No  action  was  taken  upon  it.  The 
Louisiana  House  of  Representatives,  by  a  large  majority,  passed  a 
bill  providing  for  the  importation  of  2,500  African  negroes  to  be 
indentured  for  a  term  of  not  less  than  fifteen  years.  A  select  com- 
mittee of  the  Senate  reported  the  bill  favorably.  The  Senate,  by 
a  majority  of  only  two  votes,  postponed  the  bill  indefinitely.71 
Both  the  Mississippi  and  the  Louisiana  measures  were  said  to  be 
compatible  with  the  Federal  Laws  prohibiting  the  slave  trade.72 
In  the  South  Carolina  Legislature  of  1857-1859  the  subject  was 
again  considered.  In  January,  1859,  DeBow  wrote:  "Certainly  no 
cause  has  ever  grown  with  greater  rapidity  than  has  that  of  the  ad- 
vocates of  the  slave  trade,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  attitude  it 
is  assuming  in  most  of  our  Southern  Legislatures."73  In  the  press 
also  the  subject  received  its  full  share  of  attention. 

The  great  increase  in  the  illicit  foreign  slave  trade  during  the 
18505  can  be  attributed  largely  to  the  enormous  profits  made 
possible  by  the  high  prices  slaves  were  commanding;  but  the  state 
of  public  opinion  in  the  South  was  also  favorable  to  it.  It  was 
notorious  that  the  lawrs  were  being  violated.  The  newspapers 
commented  upon  the  slave  smuggling  and  sometimes  with  ap- 
proval. Federal  officials  were  remarkably  inefficient  and  apathetic 
in  the  enforcement  of  the  laws  against  it.  It  seemed  impossible 
to  get  a  jury  in  the  South  to  convict  a  slave  trader.74  In  the 
Southern  Commercial  Convention  at  Vicksburg,  L.  W.  Spratt  and 
others  openly  advocated  violation  of  the  laws.  When  opponents 
declared  the  agitation  useless  because  Congress  would  never  legal- 
ize the  trade,  Spratt  replied  that  if  the  trade  were  approved  by 
Southern  sentiment,  it  would  matter  little  what  might  be  the 

TONew  Orleans  Delta,  Feb.  9,  1858;  DeBow 's  Review,  XXV,  627. 

"New  Orleans  Picayune,  Mar.  5,  21,  27,  1858;  De Bow's  Review,  XXV,  491 
ff.,  627.  The  report  of  the  select  committee  of  the  Senate  is  in  ibid.,  XXIV, 
421-24. 

"Henry  Hughes,  "State  Liberties,  or  the  Right  to  African  Contract  Labor," 
in  ibid.,  XXV,  626-53;  report  of  the  select  committee  of  the  Louisiana  Senate, 
just  cited.  But  see  opinion  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  Cobb,  House  Exec. 
Docs.,  36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  IV,  No.  7,  pp.  632-36. 

™ DeBow' s  Review,  XXVI,  51.  See  also  ibid.,  XXVII,  493,  quoting  the 
Richmond  Whig. 

74New  Orleans  True  Delta,  May  5,  1859.  Also  Charleston  Mercury,  Mar.  4, 
II,  1858,  quoting  the  New  Orleans  Delta;  Mercury,  May  22,  Aug.  5,  1858;  Du- 
Bois,  Suppression  of  the  African  Slave  Trade,  183-87. 


2l6     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [2l6 

course  of  Congress.75  More  honorable  was  the  suggestion  fre- 
quently made  that  the  laws  against  the  foreign  slave  trade  were 
unconstitutional  and  should  be  nullified.  The  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations  of  the  Senate  of  Louisiana  argued  that  the 
Federal  laws  against  the  foreign  slave  trade  were  unconstitutional, 
and  the  state  was  in  duty  bound  to  interpose;  the  legislature  had 
an  unquestionable  right  to  enact  a  law  permitting  the  importation 
of  slaves  from  Cuba,  Brazil,  etc.,  and  any  attempt  on  the  part  of 
the  Federal  authorities  to  interfere  with  its  operation  would  be 
tyranny.76 

We  cannot  be  too  critical  of  the  motives  either  of  those  who 
favored  or  of  those  who  opposed  reopening  the  African  slave 
trade.  The  prominent  leaders  of  the  movement  were  disunionists, 
and  were  known  as  such  before  the  agitation  had  well  begun. 
They  saw  in  the  foreign  slave  trade  another  issue  which  would 
divide  the  sections,  and  in  the  certain  refusal  of  the  North  to 
permit  the  revival  of  the  trade  another  pretext  for  dissolving  the 
Union.  The  debate  turned  almost  as  much  upon  the  advisability 
of  debating  the  question  as  it  did  upon  the  advisability  of  reopen- 
ing the  trade.  The  Charleston  Mercury  deplored  the  agitation  of 
the  question  because  it  divided  and  distracted  the  South.77  Others 
answered  that  if  disunionists  waited  for  a  united  South  they 
would  never  get  out  of  the  Union.78  The  great  majority  of  the 
Unionist  leaders  and  newspapers  were  opposed  to  raising  the 
question.  They  charged  that  the  agitation  had  been  got  up  to 
promote  disunion.79  Advocates  of  reopening  the  slave  trade  made 
the  counter  charge  that  its  opponents  were  afraid  to  debate  the 
question  on  its  merits.  They  were  willing  to  sacrifice  the  interests 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  212;  New  York  Herald,  May  18,  1859.  H.  S. 
Foote  branded  such  utterances  as  "high  treason." 

™DeBow's  Review,  XXVI,  485  (extract  from  the  report).  Such  prominent 
men  as  W  L.  Yancey  and  ex-Governor  J.  D.  McRae  argued  that  the  Federal 
laws  prohibiting  the  foreign  slave  were  unconstitutional.  Hodgson,  Cradle  of  the 
Confederacy,  379;  DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  362-64. 

T7Mar.   10,  1859.    Also  speech  of  R.  B.  Rhett,  July  4,  1859,  in  Mercury, 

July  7- 

T8E.  g.,  John  A.  Jones,  of  Georgia,  in  the  Montgomery  Commercial  Conven- 
tion, Hodgson,  op.  cit.,  377. 

"New  Orleans  Picayune,  Mar.  21,  1858. 


2I/]  FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  2  If 

of  the  South  to  avoid  raising  an  issue  which  might  endanger  the 
stability  of  the  Union.80 

The  agitation  for  the  revival  of  the  slave  trade  may  be  regard- 
ed as,  in  a  measure,  merely  a  reaction  to  the  excesses  of  the 
Garrisonian  abolitionists  in  the  North.  J.  J.  Pettigru,  in  his  report 
to  the  South  Carolina  Legislature,  said:  "It  is  not  intended  to 
impute  directly  or  indirectly  a  want  of  sincerity  to  the  supporters 
of  the  measure;  ....  but  a  great  many  worthy  persons  are 
honestly  disposed  to  make  issue  with  the  North  from  a  spirit  of 
pure  combativeness,  without  regard  to  ostensible  causes."81 

It  could  very  plausibly  be  argued  that  the  reopening  of  the 
African  slave  trade  was  necessary  if  the  South  were  to  maintain 
the  sectional  equilibrium  upon  which  the  maintenance  of  her 
rights  and  interests  in  the  Union  was  said  to  depend.  The  North 
was  said  to  be  gaining  three  congressmen  a  year  and  rapidly 
settling  new  free  states  and  territories  by  virtue  of  foreign  immi- 
gration.82 How  could  the  South  maintain  her  political  equality 
when  the  only  class  of  immigration  she  could  attract  and  use  was 
barred?  A  bitter  contest  was  being  waged  over  Kansas.  Kansas, 
it  was  painfully  evident,  was  being  lost  to  the  South  because  there 
was  no  excess  of  slave  population  to  go  into  it.  Plans  for  acquiring 
Cuba  and  territory  in  northern  Mexico  or  Central  America  with 
a  view  to  making  slaveholding  states  of  them  were  said  to  be 
futile  without  the  reopening  of  the  foreign  slave  trade;  for  either 
there  would  be  no  slaves  to  populate  them,  and  they  would  be- 
come free  states;  or  the  older  slave  states  would  be  drained  of 
their  slave  population,  and  become  free  states.  Alexander  H. 
Stephens  and  Jefferson  Davis  both  said  the  South  could  not  hope 
for  any  great  extension  of  slave  territory  unless  the  slave  trade 
were  reopened.83  Indeed,  without  population  to  take  advantage  of 
them,  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision  were 
empty  victories.  Even  without  further  extension  of  territory,  it 

*°E.  g.,  W.  H.  McCardle,  of  Mississippi,  in  the  Vicksburg  convention,  New 
York  Herald,  May  18,  1859. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXV,  306. 

"^Temple,  of  Tennessee,  in  Southern  Commercial  Convention,  Knoxville,  1857, 
ibid.,  XXIII,  319. 

"Stephens's  farewell  address  to  his  constituents,  Augusta,  Georgia,  July  2, 
1859,  in  Cleveland,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  647;  Davis,  quoted  in  Cairnes,  The 
Slave  Power,  243  n. 


2l8      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [2l8 

was  said,  there  was  a  possibility  of  the  loss  of  Maryland,  Ken- 
tucky, and  Missouri  to  slavery  through  the  transfer  South  of  the 
slave  population  and  the  influx  of  elements  hostile  to  it.  "There 
is  no  denying,"  said  Yancey,  "that  there  is  a  large  emancipation 
interest  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky  and  Maryland  and  Missouri, 
the  fruits  of  which  we  see  in  Henry  Winter  Davis,  Cassius  M. 
Clay,  and  Thomas  H.  Benton."84 

Advocates  of  reviving  the  slave  trade  contended  that  the 
measure  was  necessary  to  secure  slavery  against  the  attacks  of 
present  or  future  foes  within  the  cotton  states  themselves.  If  there 
should  arise  a  serious  shortage  of  labor,  Northern  and  European 
labor,  unfriendly  to  slavery,  would  come  in  to  supply  the  de- 
ficiency. Governor  Adams,  of  South  Carolina,  said,  that,  if  the 
South  could  not  supply  the  demand  for  slave-  labor,  "we  must 
expect  to  be  supplied  with  a  species  of  labor  we  do  not  want,  and 
which  is  from  the  very  nature  of  things  antagonistic  to  our  insti- 
tutions."85 Fears  were  expressed  that  the  "labor  base"  was 
already  becoming  too  narrow.  "We  need  to  strengthen  this  institu- 
tion," said  Yancey,  "and  how  better  can  we  do  that  than  by 
showing  the  non-slaveholding  class  of  our  citizens  that  they  can 
buy  a  negro  for  $200,  which,  in  a  few  years,  by  his  care  and  in- 
struction, will  become  worth  a  thousand  dollars  ?"86  Some  of  these 
agitators  accepted  the  "irrepressible  conflict"  doctrine.  "  ....  in 
Tennessee,  and  even  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Louisi- 
ana," said  L.  W.  Spratt,  "there  is  a  large  class  of  persons  who 
have  to  make  their  own  bread  with  their  own  hands,  and  these  are 
distinctly  conscious  that  there  is  a  difference  between  'labor'  and 
'slave  labor.'  "87  Opponents  of  reopening  the  slave  trade  denied 
that  it  would  make  slavery  more  secure:  slavery  was  most  secure 
when  the  prices  of  slaves  were  highest.88  They  also  denied  the 
presence  in  the  South  of  a  large  class  inimical  to  slavery.  Roger 
A.  Pryor  characterized  it  a  "foul  libel  upon  the  citizens  of  the 

MIn  Southern  Commercial  Convention,  Montgomery,  DeBow's  Review, 
XXIV,  587. 

"Charleston  Daily  Courier,  Nov.  26,  1856. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  587. 

"''Report  on  the  Slave  Trade — Made  to  the  Southern  Convention  at  Mont- 
gomery," etc.,  in  ibid.,  XXIV,  473-91.  (Quotation  on  page  489.) 

""E.g.,  H.  S.  Foote,  in  the  Vicksburg  convention,  ibid.,  XXVII,  219;  Pettigru, 
Minority  Report  in  S.  C.  Legislature,  ibid.,  XXV,  176. 


219]  FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  219 

South  to  thus  endorse  what  Greeley  and  Seward  have  been  assert- 
ing so  many  years  .  .  ."  He  admitted  that  "emigrees"  from  the 
North  might  be  considered  hostile  to  slavery.  The  facts  seem  to 
have  been  against  Pryor's  contention.89 

Everywhere  in  the  South  where  white  laborers  came  into  com- 
petition with  slaves  there  was  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  whites 
toward  negroes  and  their  masters  and  a  demand,  not  for  the  eman- 
cipation of  slaves  to  be  sure,  but  for  their  exclusion  from  the 
employments  in  which  competition  was  felt.  This  spirit  was 
noticeable  especially  among  mechanics  and  artisans  and  unskilled 
laborers  in  the  cities.  In  South  Carolina  the  white  mechanics 
memorialized  the  Legislature,  185  8-1859,  for  laws  prohibiting  slaves 
from  hiring  their  own  time  and  working  at  mechanical  employ- 
ments.90 In  the  Southern  Commercial  Convention  at  Vicksburg,  Mr. 
Purdon,  of  Mississippi,  offered  resolutions,  which  had  been  adopted 
by  a  meeting  of  white  mechanics,  condemning  the  practice  of  making 
public  mechanics  of  negroes,  and  declaring  that  slave  labor  should 
be  confined  to  the  corn,  cotton,  and  sugar  plantations.91  In  Ala- 
bama and  North  Carolina  also  there  was  opposition  to  the  em- 
ployment of  slaves  in  mechanical  pursuits.92  In  the  latter  state 
workingmen's  associations  began  the  agitation  for  the  ad  valorem 
tax  upon  slave  property,  which  became  the  leading  issue  of  state 
politics  during  the  few  years  immediately  preceding  the  war.93 
The  author  of  The  Impending  Crisis  of  the  South  claimed  to  rep- 
resent the  free  labor  of  North  Carolina  with  whose  development 
slavery  interfered.  In  New  Orleans  and  other  cities  of  the  South 
the  practice  of  employing  slaves  as  draymen  was  abandoned  be- 
cause of  the  objections  of  whites.94  Nor  were  all  of  those  who 
favored  the  restriction  of  slave  labor  to  the  plantations  working- 

f°De  Bow's  Review,  XXIV,  581. 

""Extract  from  the  report  of  the  committee  on  negro  population,  J.  Harlston 
Read,  Jr.,  chairman,  in  ibid'.,  XXVI,  600  ff. 

"Ibid.,  XXVII,  102. 

"Montgomery  Daily  Confederation,  Jan.  19,  1859;  Olmsted,  Cotton  King- 
dom, II,  137;  Republican  Banner  and  Nashville  Whig,  Aug.  18,  1857  (riotous 
demonstration  of  white  mechanics  of  Wilmington,  N.  C.,  against  negro  me- 
chanics). 

"J.  W.  Moore,  History  of  North  Carolina,  II,  137,  138;  Wm.  K.  Boyd, 
"North  Carolina  on  the  Eve  of  Secession,"  in  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Rept.,  1910, 
pp.  168,  174. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  602. 


22O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [220 

men.  Others  favored  it  to  prevent  a  "war  between  free  labor  and 
slave  labor  in  our  midst,"  to  make  white  labor  "aristocratic"  and 
invite  immigration,  and  to  obviate  difficulties  of  controlling  slaves 
in  cities  and  towns.95  Immigrants  from  the  North  and  Europe 
were  generally  unfriendly  to  slavery.  There  were  farming  com- 
munities in  the  cotton  states  from  which  the  whites  would  have 
been  glad  to  have  all  negroes  expelled.96  In  several  of  the  slave- 
holding  states,  notably  Alabama,  Tennessee,  North  Carolina,  and 
Virginia,  there  were  political  divisions  based  upon  the  division 
of  each  into  a  farming,  largely  non-slaveholding  section  and  a 
planting  section  or  black  belt.  The  people  of  the  farming  sections 
were  not  generally  hostile  to  slavery,  but  they  did  resent  the 
political  dominance  of  the  planters.  So  the  fears  of  Spratt  and 
others  that  opposition  to  slavery  might  grow  up  in  its  very  midst 
were  not  at  all  groundless. 

All  of  these  classes  hostile  or  potentially  hostile  to  negroes  or 
slavery  or  both  were  opposed  to  reopening  the  African  slave  trade. 
If  the  South  were  to  have  immigration,  they  preferred  that  it  be 
white  immigration.  They  were  joined  by  those  who,  while  devoted 
to  slavery,  feared  it  to  be  a  doomed  institution:  if  emancipation 
should  ever  occur,  they  thought,  the  South  would  have  a  quite 
sufficient  race  problem  with  the  natural  increase  of  her  existing 
negro  population.97 

On  the  question  whether  or  not  it  would  be  to  the  economic  in- 
terest of  the  cotton  planters  and  the  South  to  increase  the  labor 
force  engaged  in  the  production  of  cotton  by  the  importation  of 
slaves  from  abroad,  there  was  a  difference  of  opinion.  In  the 
opinion  of  the  advocates  of  reopening  the  slave  trade,  the  demand 
for  cotton  was  growing  so  rapidly  that  production  could  be 
materially  increased  without  reducing  the  price.  A  failure  on  the 
part  of  the  South  to  produce  sufficient  cotton  to  supply  the  de- 
mand might  result  temporarily  in  exorbitant  prices  which  would 
stimulate  production  in  other  quarters  of  the  globe,  and,  conse- 
quently, cause  the  loss  of  America's  monopoly  and,  finally,  a 

"Charleston  Courier,  Dec.  28,  1856,  letter  on  "Policy  of  Planters";  So.  Quar. 
Review,  XXVI,  447. 

"Olmsted,  A  Journey  in  the  Back  Country,  II,  236,  and  passim  (Putnam's 
ed.,  1907). 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  219. 


22 1  ]  FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  221 

permanent  decline  of  prices.  The  cotton  crop  could  not  be 
sufficiently  increased  without  fresh  supplies  of  labor.  Reopening 
the  African  slave  trade  would  supply  the  deficiency.  Further,  a 
revival  of  the  slave  trade  would  lower  the  prices  of  slaves,  and 
thus  reduce  the  cost  of  production. 

The  possibility  of  producing  cotton  by  white  labor  received 
considerable  attention,  especially  from  a  class  of  Northern  and 
English  writers  who  were  interested  not  so  much  in  the  future  of 
cotton  as  in  the  future  of  slavery.98  White  labor,  they  asserted, 
was  cheaper  than  negro  slave  labor,  and  whites  could  work  in  the 
climate  of  the  cotton  belt.  Robert  Russell,  the  most  competent  of 
the  British  observers,  put  a  high  estimate  upon  the  advantages  of 
the  plantation  system,  but  saw  no  bar  in  the  climate  to  production 
of  cotton  by  white  labor.  He  remarked  the  considerable  amount 
of  cotton  already  grown  in  the  pine  barrens,  whose  climate  was 
even  warmer  than  that  of  the  middle  zone  or  uplands,  where  most 
of  the  plantations  were  located."  Of  the  people  of  the  South  some 
believed  white  labor  for  cotton  production  available,  but  con- 
sidered it  undesirable;  others,  waiving  the  question  of  desirability, 
professed  to  believe  it  unavailable.  Many  seem  to  have  believed 
the  assertion  so  frequently  made  that,  as  one  put  it,  "In  the  cotton, 
rice,  and  sugar  regions,  slave  labor  is  not  only  more  productive, 
but  is  the  only  species  of  labor  which  can  be  depended  upon  for 
the  cultivation  of  these  great  staples."100  Those  who  made  this 
assertion  knew,  of  course,  that  thousands  of  non-slaveholding 
whites  were  engaged  in  a  small  way  in  the  production  of  cotton. 
DeBow  estimated  the  number  so  engaged  in  1850  at  100,000;  the 
number  of  slaves  employed  in  the  cotton  fields  he  set  at 
Soo.ooo.101  The  great  majority  of  the  planter  class  seem  to  have 
taken  little  interest  in  the  poor  whites,  and  to  have  had  less  faith 
in  making  them  productive  members  of  society.  As  for  European 
labor,  it  was  not  forthcoming,  whether  for  climatic,  social,  or  other 
reasons.  Said  DeBow:  "It  is  plain,  and  time  and  events  have 

MF.  L.  Olmsted,  Cotton  Kingdom,  II,  254-59,  265-67;  Journey  in  the  Back 
Country,  377  ff.;  Edward  Atkinson,  Cheap  Cotton  by  Free  Labor,  by  a  Cotton 
Manujacturer;  Weston,  Progress  of  Slavery,  44;  Stirling  Letters  from  the  Slave 
States,  234,  302  if.;  Russell,  North  America,  284  ff. 

"North  America,  284,  285.  Cf.  M.  B.  Hammond,  The  Cotton  Industry,  94  ff. 

100A.  J.  Roane,  of  Washington,  DeBow 's  Review,  XX,  66 1. 

101 Industrial  Resources  of  the  Southern  and  Western  States,  I,  175. 


222      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [222 

demonstrated  the  fact,  that  it  is  not  European  labor  which  we 
want,  since  that  labor,  during  so  long  an  experiment  has  not  taken 
foothold  in  our  limits,  evidencing  thus  an  incapacity  to  adopt 
itself  to  our  conditions  and  to  become  amalgamated  with  us."102 
Naturally  the  planters  themselves,  from  economic  motives  alone 
(although  this  aspect  of  the  matter  was  not  publicly  discussed), 
would  not  invite  competition  from  a  large  number  of  white  farmers, 
whether  native  or  immigrant. 

Opponents  of  reopening  the  slave  trade  denied  that  it  would 
benefit  the  agricultural  interests.  -A  material  increase  in  the 
cotton  crop  would  depress  prices.  Cheap  cotton  would  benefit 
only  the  manufacturer.  America's  position  as  the  chief  source 
of  raw  cotton  was  not  endangered.  Slaves  from  Africa  would 
constitute  a  poor  grade  of  labor,  and,  therefore,  would  not  lessen 
the  cost  of  production,  however  much  they  might  depress  the 
price  of  slaves.103 

Advocates  of  the  reopening  of  the  African  slave  trade  claimed 
that  it  would  be  beneficial  to  other  industries  as  well  as  agriculture. 
The  great  obstacle,  they  said,  was  lack  of  labor.  As  long  as  cot- 
ton culture  paid  more  for  labor  than  other  employments  could  af- 
ford, it  was  idle  to  attempt  to  divert  labor  to  them.104  The  use  of 
such  an  argument  was  plainly  an  attempt  to  meet  the  opposition  to 
the  slave  trade  ot  those  who  were  urging  diversification  of  industry 
as  a  proper  policy  for  the  South.  The  argument  was  inconsistent 
with  the  contention  that  renewal  of  the  slave  trade  would  benefit 
agriculture.  And  diversificationists  were  not  desirous  of  diverting 
labor  to  less  profitable  industries;  in  their  opinion,  the  develop- 
ment of  varied  industry  would  benefit  all.  The  suggestion  made, 
that  slave  labor  might  be  used  in  manufactures,  could  not  carry 
great  weight.  It  had  been  tried  with  small  success.  However, 
the  great  obstacle  to  the  development  of  diversified  industry  in 
the  South  was  not  so  much  lack  of  labor  as  a  deficiency  of  capital. 
There  was  much  unprofitably  employed  white  labor  in  the  South. 

™DeBotff's  Review,  XXVII,  232. 

10SJ.  J.  Pettigru,  minority  report  of  a  committee  of  the  S.  C.  Legislature,  in 
ibid.,  XXV,  166-185;  289-308;  speech  of  ex-Senator  Brooke,  of  Miss.,  in  the 
Vicksburg  Convention,  ibid.,  XXVII,  360-62;  and  most  of  the  speeches  and 
papers  against  reopening  the  slave  trade. 

1MThe  best  statement  of  this  argument  is  in  L.  W.  Spratt,  ''Report  on  the 
Slave  Trade,"  etc.,  Montgomery  Convention,  in  ibid.,  XXIV,  473-91. 


223]  FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  22j 

On  the  very  eve  of  the  war,  William  Gregg  wrote,  "The  idea  that 
we  lack  laborers  at  the  South,  and  will  be  under  the  necessity  of 
importing  wild  Africans,  is  preposterous."  He  told  why  the  immi- 
grant did  not  come  South:  When  he  learns  that  "one-half  of  our 
white  people,  who  are  willing  to  work,  can  not  procure  employment 
— that  able-bodied  men  are  roaming  about  the  country  glad  to  get 
work  at  seventy-five  cents  per  day  and  find  themselves — while 
similar  labor  commands  a  dollar  or  more  at  the  North  and  West, 
is  it  at  all  surprising  that  he  does  not  come  to  the  South?"108 

We  come  again  to  the  fact  that  many  of  the  slaveholding 
element  in  the  South,  including  advocates  of  the  reopening  of  the 
slave  trade,  feared  the  development  of  white  labor  and  sought  to 
prevent  it  by  keeping  the  white  laborers  in  a  minority.  They 
neither  wished  to  employ  profitably  that  already  in  the  South  or  to 
invite  immigration.  Gregg  and  others  of  his  way  of  thinking,  on 
the  contrary,  had  no  fear  of  white  labor.  They  wanted  to  put 
the  whites  to  work  as  well  as  the  blacks,  and  they  were  inclined 
to  welcome  immigration  from  the  North  and  Europe.  They  pro- 
fessed to  believe  that  a  white  population,  profitably  employed, 
would  not  be  inimical  to  slavery.  They  were  not  hostile  to  slavery, 
but  they  saw  no  necessity  for  subordinating  every  other  interest 
to  this  single  one.  Reopening  the  African  slave  trade,  could  it  have 
been  accomplished,  would  have  been  a  measure  to  perpetuate  the 
old  order  in  the  South.  The  New  Orleans  Picayune  took  note  of 
this  fact.  After  describing  at  some  length  the  progress  being  made 
in  manufactures  and  internal  improvements  and  the  changes  which 
were  coming  over  the  South,  it  said:  "It  is  worse  than  folly  to 
arrest  the  present  direction  of  capital  and  enterprise  by  plans 
whose  effect,  if  successfully  carried  into  execution,  would  restore 
the  former  tendency  of  all  Southern  enterprise  to  the  channel  of 
agriculture."106 

It  could  not  be  concealed  that  there  was  very  strong  opposition 
to  the  foreign  slave  trade  on  moral  and  religious  grounds.  L.  W. 
Spratt,  the  arch-agitator,  said  all  the  women  and  all  the  "pious" 
were  against  him.107  The  influx  of  a  horde  of  barbarians,  said 
opponents,  would  change  Southern  slavery  from  a  patriarchal 

1<aDeBow's  Review,  XXIX,  623,  630. 

1MMay  22,  1858. 

™DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  213. 


institution  to  one  like  that  of  Cuba,  where  cruelty  and  severity 
were  necessary  to  control  the  slaves.108  The  people  of  the  South 
were  very  sensitive  to  the  opinions  of  the  world.  "This  proposi- 
tion, if  endorsed,  would  shock  the  moral  sentiment  of  Christian- 
dom,"  said  Roger  A.  Pryor.109 

The  people  of  the  border  states  were  almost  unanimously 
opposed  to  the  agitation  of  the  slave  trade  proposal.  They  were 
charged  (by  W.  L.  Yancey  and  others)  with  being  desirous  of 
maintaining  the  high  prices  of  slaves  because  they  held  the  position 
of  sellers  of  slaves  to  the  buyers  in  the  cotton  states.110  Virginians, 
against  whom  the  charge  was  particularly  made,  repelled  the 
charge  with  indignation.  Virginia  was  prospering,  they  said;  she 
had  opened  a  field  for  slave  labor  which  rendered  it  profitable  at 
home.111  No  doubt  many  slave  owners  in  Virginia  and  other  slave 
selling  states  were  interested  in  keeping  prices  up;  but  we  need 
not  emphasize  economic  motives  to  explain  the  opposition  in  the 
border  states.  They  were  the  states  with  the  largest  non-slave- 
holding  population,  the  largest  foreign  element  (excepting  Louisi- 
ana, of  the  cotton  states),  and  the  largest  Northern  element.  In 
each  of  the  border  states  there  was  considerable  emancipation 
sentiment.  Being  nearer  the  North,  their  people  were  more  sensi- 
tive to  criticisms  of  slavery  than  the  people  farther  south.  Their 
institution  was  milder  and  more  patriarchal;  and  their  moral  re- 
pugnance to  the  slave  trade  had  not  been  blunted  by  familarity 
with  it. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that,  although  every' coast  state  had  either 
laws  or  constitutional  provisions  or  both  against  the  foreign  slave 
trade,  not  one  otthem  was  repealed.  Not  a  single  state  legislature 
went  so  far  as  to  pass  resolutions  demanding  the  repeal  of  the 
Federal  laws  against  it.  In  Mississippi,  where,  with  the  exceptions 

108J.  J.  Pettigru,  Roger  A.  Pryor,  H.  W.  Milliard,  in  DeBow's  Revitw,  XXV, 
289  ff.;  XXIV,  582,  592. 

1<albid.,  XXIV,  582.  Russell  formed  a  different  impression.  In  Charleston 
he  overheard  a  conversation  on  reopening  the  slave  trade.  "One  made  the  remark 
that  the  South  now  paid  little  regard  to  what  England  might  think  of  the 
matter  ...  I  was  somewhat  mortified  to  find  how  little  impression  all  that 
has  been  said  and  written  about  slavery  has  had  on  those  whose  pecuniary  in- 
terests are  interwoven  with  the  institution."  North  America,  162. 

110Yancey  in  the  Montgomery  Convention,  DeBow's  Review,  XXIV,  585. 

niWm.  Ballard  Preston's  reply  to  Yancey,  ibid.,  XXIV,  595. 


225]  FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  225 

of  Louisiana  and  Texas,  the  movement  was  strongest,  the  Demo- 
cratic party  was  afraid  to  take  it  up  as  a  new  political  issue.112  In 
South  Carolina,  after  two  years  of  agitation,  only  in  the  Charleston 
district  was  it  made  an  issue  in  the  political  campaign  of  1858. 113 
South  Carolina  leaders  who  found  the  agitation  prejudicial  to  the 
cause  of  disunion  by  dividing  the  South  were  able  to  silence  the 
agitation  in  all  but  two  of  the  newspapers  of  the  state.  Sectional 
politics  was  no  doubt  largely  responsible  for  the  origin  of  the 
agitation.  Once  begun,  however,  it  is  questionable  whether  con- 
siderations of  sectional  politics  did  not  operate  more  strongly 
against  the  movement  than  for  it.  A  fair  conclusion  perhaps  would 
be  that  only  in  two  or  three  Southwestern  slave  states  was  the 
movement  strong  enough  to  have  insured  legalizing  the  reopening 
of  the  trade  had  not  Federal  laws  imposed  an  obstacle.  And  the 
strength  of  the  movement  there  can  be  attributed  chiefly  to 
economic  causes;  agriculture  was  expanding  rapidly;  thousands 
of  slaves  were  being  bought  for  the  plantations  at  prices  so  high 
as  to  absorb  a  large  share  of  the  profits. 

The  comparative  prosperity  of  Southern  agriculture  during  the 
decade  before  the  War  was  reflected  to  a  degree  in  other  industries. 
In  1850  there  were  2,004.37  miles  of  railroads  in  the  Southern 
states,  constructed  at  a  cost  of  $42,181,665.  In  1860  the  mileage 
was  8,946.9,  representing  a  cost  for  construction  of  #237,376,O97.114 
Unlike  the  railroads  of  the  West  they  had  not  been  built  entirely 
with  capital  borrowed  in  the  East  or  abroad.115  Southern  pro- 
moters experienced  difficulty  in  selling  their  bonds  in  the  North 
or  in  England.  Public  opinion  demanded  that  the  roads  be  built, 
and  every  expedient  was  resorted  to  to  sell  the  stock  at  home. 
Because  of  the  difficulty  of  raising  capital,  Southern  railroads  had 
been  economically  built,  and,  too  often,  cheaply  constructed  and 
poorly  equipped.  Traffic  had  proved  light  and  dividends  generally 
small,  and  the  mileage  had  been  extended  beyond  the  immediate 
requirements,  although  by  1860  there  was  promise  of  better  con- 
ditions in  the  industry. 

112Henry  S.  Foote,  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  254-56. 

™DeBow's  Review,  XXVII,  364,  remarks  of  Mr.  Farrow,  of  S.  C. 

114Ringwalt,  Development  of  Transportation  Systems  in  the  U.  S.,  151. 

^Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XLII,  315;  Kettell,  Southern  Wealth  and 
Northern  Profits,  50,  88;  Powell,  Notes  on  Southern  Wealth  and  Northern  Profits; 
Cong.  Globe,  32  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  1056. 


226     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [226 

The  rapid  extension  of  agriculture,  under  the  influence  of  higher 
prices,  naturally  absorbed  most  of  the  capital  accumulated  from 
the  profits  of  the  industry.  The  building  of  the  railroads  likewise 
constituted  a  heavy  drain  upon  the  capital  of  the  South.  Notwith- 
standing, noteworthy  extensions  were  being  made  in  several  lines 
of  industry,  and  plants  already  established  were  prospering. 

The  railroads  brought  in  with  them  machine  shops  and  repair 
shops.  Several  rolling  mills  had  been  established  before  1860.  The 
value  of  the  bar,  sheet,  and  railroad  iron  made  in  the  South  in- 
creased from  $1,504,443  in  1850  to  $2,458,119  in  1860,  or  63  per 
cent.116  Railroad  cars  were  made  in  a  few  shops;  the  Tredegar 
Locomotive  works  at  Richmond  made  19  of  the  470  locomotives 
made  in  the  United  States  in  1860.  Stationary  engines  were  being 
constructed  in  many  places.  The  production  of  coal  had  nearly 
trebled,  although  the  aggregate  was  still  small,  about  one-ninth  of 
the  total  production  of  the  United  States.  The  iron  industry  had 
not  yet  been  greatly  affected  by  the  coming  of  the  railroads;  in 
the  production  of  pig  iron  there  was  a  decline  between  1850  and 
1860. 

During  the  years  just  before  the  war  the  cotton  factories,  after 
several  years  of  great  difficulty,  were  again  prosperous.  In  1855 
the  Georgia  factories  were  reported  in  thriving  condition.  A  year 
or  two  later  similar  reports  came  from  northern  Alabama  and 
western  Tennessee.117  Occasionally  the  building  of  a  new  factory 
was  reported.  The  attention  of  the  North  was  attracted  to  the  re- 
vival.118 General  Charles  T.  James,  of  Rhode  Island,  again  put 
his  services  at  the  disposal  of  any  company  proposing  to  establish 
new  factories.113  During  the  decade  1850-1860  the  number  of 
cotton  factories  in  Georgia  grew  from  29  to  33,  the  number  of 
hands  employed  from  2,107  to  2,813,  and  the  value  of  the  product 
from  $1,395,056  to  $2,371,207,  or  69.97  per  cent.  These  gains  made 
Georgia  the  leading  cotton  manufacturing  state  of  the  South,  and, 

""All  the  statistics  given  in  the  next  few  pages  are  taken  from  the  reports 
of  the  Sixth,  Seventh,  and  Eighth  censuses  unless  otherwise  specified.  The  term 
"the  South"  is  used  to  include  only  the  eleven  states  which  seceded.  The  census 
reports  include  mining  and  lumbering  with  manufacturing;  and  there  would  be 
no  point  in  making  a  distinction  here. 

^Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXXVII,  ill;  XXIX,  755- 

""Charleston  Mercury,  May  25,  1858. 

™DeBow's  Review,  XXVIII,  244. 


227]  FACTORS  WHICH  TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  227 

in  part,  justified  her  reputation  as  the  "Massachusetts  of  the 
South."  Considerable  gains  were  made  also  in  Alabama  and 
Tennessee.  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  made  no  progress  in  this 
industry.  South  Carolina  showed  a  decline.  The  revival  in  the 
cotton  manufacturing  industry  came  too  late  to  greatly  improve 
the  showing  the  South  as  a  whole  made  in  1860.  The  progress  in 
the  South  had  been  smaller  proportionally  than  in  the  country 
at  large,  and  the  product  of  Southern  factories  was  only  one- 
fourteenth  of  the  total  for  the  United  States. 

The  value  of  the  product  of  Southern  woolen  manufactures  in- 
creased 143.55  Per  cent  between  1850  and  1860;  the  increase  for 
the  country  at  large  was  42.14  per  cent.  During  the  same  period 
the  value  of  men's  clothing  produced  in  the  South  increased  65.96 
per  cent;  in  the  United  States,  51.55  per  cent.  For  boots  and 
shoes,  the  percentages  of  increase  were  89.9  and  70.27.  The  pro- 
duction of  paper  was  increased  almost  threefold,  and  of  printing 
over  sevenfold.  But  in  the  case  of  each  of  the  items  named  the 
Southern  states  produced  only  three  or  four  per  cent  of  the  total 
output  for  the  United  States,  a  quantity  entirely  inadequate  to 
meet  the  home  demand.  A  respectable  beginning  had  been  made 
in  the  manufacture  of  carriages  and  coaches,  wagons  and  carts, 
saddlery  and  harness,  nails  and  spikes,  sashes,  doors,  and  blinds, 
and  in  cooperage.  In  the  manufacture  of  agricultural  implements 
progress  had  been  much  slower  than  in  the  United  States  as  a 
whole;  the  South  produced  less  than  six  per  cent  of  the  total.  Of 
the  manufacture  of  one  article,  however,  the  South  had  almost  a 
monopoly;  of  57  cotton  gin  factories  in  the  United  States,  54  were 
in  the  Southern  states,  notably  Alabama.  The  value  of  the  ships 
and  boats  built  in  the  South  in  1860  was  $789,870,  which  sum  may 
be  compared  with  $11,667,661  for  the  United  States.  Of  the  631 
articles  listed  by  the  census  as  manufactures  of  the  United  States 
in  1860,  398  were  not  made  in  the  South  in  any  quantity  whatever, 
and  many  others  were  made  only  in  insignificant  quantities.  In 
these  two  classes  fell  such  common  and  necessary  articles  as  hats 
and  caps,  men's  furnishings,  women's  clothing,  millinery,  carpets 
and  rugs,  furniture  and  cabinet  ware,  earthenware,  glassware, 
hardware  and  cutlery,  tools,  and  stoves  and  ranges.  Packed  meats 
may  also  be  mentioned. 


228     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-l86l    [228 

The  Southern  states  made  the  best  showing,  both  as  regards 
aggregate  value  of  product  and  percentages  of  increase,  in  types 
of  manufacture  which  were  closely  related  to  agriculture,  or 
which  were  comparatively  simple  in  their  processes.  Thus  the 
value  of  the  flour  and  meal  ground  increased  from  $16,581,597  to 
$37,996,470,  or  129  per  cent,  between  1850  and  1860;  and  in  the 
latter  year  was  equal  to  nearly  one-fourth  the  total  value  of  all 
Southern  manufactures.  The  value  of  lumber,  planed  and  sawed, 
was  $19,696,863  in  1860,  an  increase  of  133  per  cent  over  1850, 
and  was  one-eighth  the  value  of  all  Southern  manufactures.  The 
value  of  the  tobacco  manufactured  was  $14,612,442  in  1860,  125 
per  cent  more  than  in  1850.  A  fourth  big  item  was  turpentine, 
crude  and  distilled,  valued  at  $7,409,745.  These  four  items  to- 
gether accounted  for  one-half  the  total  value  of  the  product  of  all 
Southern  manufactures;  and  the  capital  invested  in  their  manu- 
facture was  nearly  one-half  the  capital  invested  in  all  the  manu- 
factures of  the  South. 

The  capital  invested  in  manufactures  in  the  South  was  13.6 
per  cent  of  the  capital  so  invested  in  the  entire  country  in  i84O,120 
10.4  per  cent  in  1850,  and  9.5  per  cent  in  1860.  The  increase  in 
capital  so  invested  in  the  South  was  51.5  per  cent  between  1840 
and  1850  and  73.6  per  cent  the  following  decade;  for  the  entire 
United  States  the  percentages  were  95.5  and  91.3.  Southern  manu- 
factures employed  88,390  hands  in  1850  and  110,721  in  1860,  an 
increase  of  25.3  per  cent.  In  the  same  period  the  population  of  the 
eleven  Southern  states  had  grown  23.9  per  cent.  The  number  of 
hands  employed  in  all  the  manufactures  of  the  United  States  in 
1850  was  957,059,  in  1860  the  number  was  1,311,246,  or  37  percent 
more.  The  population  of  the  United  States  was  35.4  per  cent 
greater  in  1860  than  in  1850. 

Statistics  are  not  available  for  a  full  comparison  of  the  progress 
of  manufactures  and  agriculture,  but  comparison  in  a  few  respects 
may  suffice.  Between  1850  and  1860  the  value  of  Southern  manu- 
factures increased  96.5  per  cent.  During  the  same  period  the  value 
of  the  cotton  crop  increased  102.7  Per  cent;  the  tobacco  crop,  119 
per  cent;  the  sugar  product,  80.3  per  cent;  and  the  live  stock  in 
the  South,  96.4  per  cent.  As  we  have  seen,  the  progress  in  other 
branches  of  agriculture  was  not  great. 

"The  statistics  for  1840  are  meager  and  can  rarely  be  used  for  comparisons. 


229]  FACTORS   WHICH   TENDED  TO  ALLAY  DISCONTENT  229 

Southern  cities  had  not  established  direct  trade,  nor  had  they 
become  industrial  centers.  Among  the  cities  of  the  United  States 
in  1860,  New  Orleans,  Charleston,  Richmond,  Mobile,  Memphis, 
Savannah,  and  Petersburg  ranked  in  size  6,  22,  25,  27,  28,  41,  and 
50  respectively.  In  value  of  manufactures  they  ranked  17,  85,  13, 
79,  74,  65,  and  49  respectively.  Thus  Richmond  and  Petersburg 
only  could  be  considered  industrial  towns.  However,  as  com- 
mercial centers  the  towns  of  the  South  reflected  accurately  the 
prosperity  of  the  section. 

The  South  was  not  in  the  throes  of  an  industrial  revolution  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  and  there  seems  to  be  little  evi- 
dence that  she  was  upon  the  verge  of  such  a  revolution.  However, 
there  were  factors  in  the  situation  which  pointed  to  a  more  rapid 
development  of  varied  industry  in  the  future.  Capital  which  might 
be  so  employed  was  accumulating.  Southern  banks  had  never  been 
in  a  stronger  condition.  The  railroads  must  soon  have  justified 
their  construction  by  giving  isolated  regions  access  to  market,  in- 
creasing intercourse,  and  creating  new  wants.  They  were  break- 
ing down  those  frontier  conditions  which,  because  of  the  great 
extent  of  the  section,  the  sparse  population,  and  the  natural  diffi- 
culties of  forests  and  rough  lands,  still  lingered  in  much  of  the 
South.  The  attention  of  Southern  men  had  been  directed  to  the 
varied  resources  of  the  land.  Geographical  surveys  had  revealed 
the  coal  and  iron  fields  of  Alabama  and  Tennessee,  lying  in  close 
proximity.  Railroads  were  ready  to  penetrate  them,  and  the  pro- 
cesses were  being  developed  which  would  make  possible  their 
utilization.  Stock  had  been  taken  of  the  water  power,  and  the 
people  were  beginning  to  realize  what  a  wealth  lay  in  the  forests. 
Small  industrial  towns  were  springing  up  here  and  there.  North- 
ern men  with  experience  in  various  branches  of  industry  were 
filtering  in;  Northern  capitalists  who  theretofore  had  found  suffi- 
cient fields  for  investment  in  the  North  and  West  were  beginning 
to  show  an  interest  in  the  possibilities  offered  by  the  South,  as  were 
also,  to  some  extent,  English  and  French  capitalists.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  a  temporary  depression  in  the  price  of  cotton  at  the 
time  might  have  given  a  decided  impetus  to  the  cotton  manu- 
facturing industry,  just  as  it  had  promised  to  do  twelve  or  fifteen 
years  earlier. 


23O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [230 

These  facts  were  not  unappreciated  in  the  South.  The  New 
Orleans  Picayune,  in  the  autumn  of  1858,  said  the  South  had  been 
making  progress,  slow  but  positive.  "Like  a  bow  in  the  heavens 
after  the  storm  clouds  have  swept  by,  we  may  now  see,  in  look- 
ing upon  the  results  of  the  sectional  agitations  of  the  immediate 
past,  indications  of  the  commencement  of  a  new  era  for  the  South 
— an  era  singularly  marked  with  home  progress."121 

So  there  were  factors  which  operated  on  the  eve  of  the  Civil 
War  to  make  the  people  of  the  South  better  content  with  their 
economic  system  and  position.  These  may  be  briefly  summarized: 
(i)  The  comparative  prosperity  of  Southern  agriculture.  (2)  A 
measure  of  prosperity  and  progress  in  other  lines  of  industry.  (3) 
Confidence  that  the  possession  of  and  the  ability  to  control  a  large 
agricultural  surplus  for  export  constituted  an  element  of  great 
political  power.  (4)  A  growing  consciousness  among  slaveholders 
that  any  considerable  diversification  of  industry  was  incompatible 
with  the  security  of  slavery.  The  first  two  of  these  would  have  a 
tendency  to  allay  sectional  feeling.  However,  the  comparative 
prosperity  of  agriculture  was  largely  the  cause  of  the  movement 
in  behalf  of  reviving  the  foreign  slave  trade,  and  it  had  decidely 
the  opposite  effect. 


'Quoted  in  DeBow's  Review,  XXV,  590. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SECESSION  OF  THE 
COTTON  STATES,  1860-1861 

After  the  election  of  November,  1860,  the  cotton  states  made 
haste  to  put  into  execution  their  threats  of  secession  in  case  of  the 
election  of  a  Republican  president.  In  South  Carolina  the  opposi- 
tion to  secession  was  very  weak  and  ineffectual.  The  Legislature 
met  in  special  session,  November  5.  The  members  were  almost 
unanimously  for  immediate,  separate  secession.  A  few  voices  were 
raised  in  favor  of  cooperation  with  other  Southern  states.1  The 
Legislature  called  a  state  convention  to  meet  December  17.  With 
few  exceptions  only  immediate  secessionists  were  elected  to  it.  On 
the  fourth  day  that  body  unanimously  adopted  an  ordinance  of 
secession.  In  taking  this  speedy  action  South  Carolina  was  not 
taking  a  leap  in  the  dark.  Her  leaders  were  confident  that  other 
states  would  soon  follow.  They  had  been  assured  by  disunion 
leaders  elsewhere  that  bold  action  would  strengthen  the  disunion 
movements  in  other  states.2  If  a  conflict  with  the  Federal  govern- 
ment should  ensue,  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  decision  of  the 
cotton  states,  at  least,  upon  the  issue,  as  it  would  then  be,  of 
sustaining  a  sister  state  against  coercion. 

Meanwhile  vigorous  contests  were  being  waged  in  the  other 
cotton  states  between  those  for  immediate  and  separate  secession 
on  the  one  hand  and  coalitions  of  unconditional  unionists,  coopera- 
tionists,  and  temporizers  on  the  other.  The  governors,  with  one  ex- 
ception, were  secessionists,  and  the  legislatures  were  controlled  by 
secessionists.  Conventions  were  called  in  all  the  states.  Brief 
campaigns  ensued  to  influence  the  election  of  delegates  and  the 
action  of  the  conventions.  These  campaigns  were  conducted 
amidst  great  excitement.  Governors  and  legislatures  anticipated 
the  action  of  the  conventions  by  seizing  forts,  arsenals,  and  other 
United  States  property,  and  by  taking  measures  to  put  their 
respective  states  on  a  military  footing.  Congressmen  sent  inflam- 
matory messages  from  Washington,  where  Senate  and  House  were 

'Proceedings  and  debates  in  the  South  Carolina  Legislature,  New  York 
Herald,  Nov.  9-14,  1860. 

'Speech  of  Mr.  Elmore,  Commissioner  from  Alabama,  before  the  South 
Carolina  Convention,  in  ibid.,  Dec.  22,  1860. 

231 


232      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l840-l86l    [232 

vainly  attempting  to  patch  up  another  compromise  to  save  the 
Union.  Commissioners  from  one  state  to  another  lent  their  in- 
fluence to  the  secession  cause. 

Considering  the  tactical  advantages  of  the  immediate  secession- 
ists, their  opponents  showed  unexpected  strength  in  three  states. 
In  Alabama  they  elected  46  of  100  delegates,  and  claimed  to  have 
cast  a  clear  majority  of  the  votes  in  the  election.  In  the  Conven- 
tion they  united  upon  a  substitute  proposal  for  a  convention  of  all 
the  Southern  states  at  Nashville,  and  waged  a  bitter  fight  in  its 
behalf.  The  bitterness  of  the  struggle  was  intensified  because  the 
alignment  was  the  old  sectional  one  between  northern  (Unionist 
in  this  case)  and  southern  Alabama.  The  struggle  did  not  cease 
when  the  convention  adopted  a  secession  ordinance.3  In  Georgia 
the  opposition  cast  42  per  cent  of  the  popular  vote.4  In  the  Con- 
vention their  substitute  proposal  for  a  convention  of  all  the  slave 
holding  states  was  defeated  by  the  narrow  margin  of  164-133; 
and  this,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Georgia  was  already  as- 
sured the  cooperation  of  four  states  if  she  should  secede.  In 
Louisiana  also  the  contest  was  hot,  and  the  popular  vote  close,  al- 
though in  the  Convention  the  immediate  secessionists  prevailed  by 
a  large  majority.  In  Texas  the  tactical  advantages  lay  with  the 
opponents  of  secession;  for  Governor  Houston  was  opposed  to  it 
and  refused  to  call  the  Legislature  in  special  session.  However,  a 
self-constituted  committee  of  citizens  called  an  election  for 
delegates  to  a  convention.  Their  action  forced  Governor  Hous- 
ton to  assemble  the  Legislature,  which  approved  the  action  of  the 
committee.  The  Convention  met  and  passed  an  ordinance  of  seces- 
sion; the  people  approved  its  action.  After  their  defeat  in  the 
several  states  the  cooperationist  and  Unionist  leaders,  with  excep- 
tions, expressed  a  determination  to  support  the  course  determined 
upon  by  the  majority.  To  conciliate  them  and  their  following,  the 
secessionist  majority  admitted  them  to  positions  of  power  and 
trust  in  numbers  proportionate  to,  if  not  in  excess  of,  their 
strength. 

'Remarks  of  W.  R.  Smith  in  the  Alabama  Convention.  Smith,  History  and 
Debates  of  the  Convention  of  the  People  of  Alabama,  67  f.;  Hodgson,  Cradle  of 
the  Confederacy,  502  ff.;  letter  of  T.  R.  R.  Cobb  to  his  wife,  Feb.  4,  1861,  in  So. 
Hist.  Assoc.,  Publ.,  IX  274. 

*Avery,  History  of  Georgia,  149. 


233]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  233 

On  February  4,  delegates  from  six  states,  soon  joined  by  dele- 
gates from  a  seventh,  met  at  Montgomery.  A  provisional  consti- 
tution for  the  Confederate  States  of  America  was  adopted.  A  pro- 
visional government  was  organized.  Commissioners  were  sent  to 
Washington  and  to  Europe.  Measures  were  taken  to  provide 
revenue  and  to  organize  an  army  and  navy.  A  permanent  consti- 
tution was  drafted  by  the  Provisional  Congress  and  submitted  to 
the  states  for  ratification. 

Meanwhile  the  secession  movement  in  other  slaveholding  states 
had  received  decided  checks,  although  aggressive  fights  had  been 
waged  by  the  secessionists  in  several.  In  North  Carolina  the  Legis- 
lature, after  much  debate,  provided  for  an  election  for  delegates 
to  a  convention  and  the  submission  to  the  people,  at  the  same 
time,  (January  28),  of  the  question  whether  or  not  a  convention 
should  be  held.  The  people  elected  82  Unionists  and  38  secession- 
ists, and  decided  against  the  convention  by  a  small  majority.5  In 
Tennessee  the  question  of  holding  a  convention  was  submitted  to 
the  electorate  and  decided  adversely  by  a  large  majority.  In 
Arkansas  the  electorate  approved  the  assembling  of  a  convention, 
but  elected  delegates  a  small  majority  of  whom  were  opposed  to 
immediate  secession.  The  action  of  Virginia  was  expected  greatly 
to  influence  that  of  the  other  border  slave  states.  The  Legislature 
met  in  special  session  at  Governor  Letcher's  call,  and  provided  for 
a  delegate  convention.  At  the  convention  election,  February  4,  the 
people  returned  a  distinct  majority  against  immediate  secession. 
Although  the  secessionists  waged  a  hard  fight  in  the  Convention, 
all  efforts  to  pass  an  ordinance  of  secession  were  foiled  until  after 
Sumter.  In  Maryland  and  Delaware  no  conventions  met,  in  the 
former  because  Governor  Hicks  refused  to  call  a  special  session  of 
the  Legislature.  Governor  Magoffm,  of  Kentucky,  recommended 
the  call  of  a  convention,  but  the  Legislature  refused.  In  Missouri 
a  Legislature  dominated  by  State  Rights  Democrats  called  a  con- 
vention, but  the  electorate  returned  an  overwhelming  majority  of 
Union  delegates. 

As  long  as  any  hope  remained  that  Congress  or  the  Peace  Con- 
ference would  agree  upon  a  settlement  which  would  restore  the 
Union,  the  people  of  the  border  states  gave  unmistakable  evidence 
of  their  desire  to  remain  in  the  Union.  Even  after  it  became  clear 
that  no  such  settlement  was  possible,  and  when  the  question  be- 

'dppleton's  Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  538. 


234     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l    [234 

came  one  of  choosing  between  the  United  States  and  the  Confed- 
erate States,  they  seem  to  have  preferred  the  Union.  However, 
notice  was  early  given  (by  North  Carolina,  Virginia,  Tennessee, 
and  Arkansas)  that  continued  adherence  to  the  Union  was  con- 
tingent upon  no  attempt  being  made  by  the  Federal  government 
to  coerce  the  seceded  states.  When,  after  Sumter,  President  Lin- 
coln issued  his  call  for 'troops,  these  states  seceded,  and  united 
their  fortunes  with  the  Confederacy.  The  other  border  states  were 
saved  for  the  Union. 

With  a  view  to  determine  whether  or  not  they  reveal  any  evi- 
dences of  economic  motives  for  Southern  sectionalism,  it  is  pro- 
posed to  analyze  (i)  the  arguments  advanced  for  and  against 
secession  after  the  election  of  Lincoln;  (2)  the  alignment  of  the 
people  upon  the  secession  issue;  (3)  the  official  statements  of 
causes  of  secession  which  were  published;  (4)  contemporary  un- 
official essays  at  interpreting  events;  and  (5)  the  formulation  of 
the  early  economic  policies  of  the  seceded  states  and  of  the  Con- 
federacy. The  considerations  determining  the  action  of  the  border 
states  were  manifestly  so  different  from  those  determining  the 
action  of  the  cotton  states  that  they  require  a  separate  treatment. 
This  chapter  will  deal  with  the  first  four  points  mentioned  with 
special  reference  to  the  cotton  states.  The  succeeding  chapters 
will  deal  with  the  early  economic  policies  of  the  seceded  states  and 
of  the  Confederacy  and  with  the  peculiar  economic  considerations 
affecting  the  decision  of  the  border  slave  states. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  arguments  for  and  against  se- 
cession in  the  cotton  states  used  after  Lincoln's  election  related 
chiefly  to  the  dangers  besetting  slavery  and  how  the  institution 
could  best  be  defended.  The  leading  arguments  of  the  secession- 
ists may  be  summarized:  (i)  The  election  had  resulted  in  the 
triumph  of  a  party  which  was  founded  upon  and  held  together  by 
hostility  to  slavery,  which  proposed  to  exclude  it  from  the  com- 
mon territories,  in  spite  of  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  which 
opposed  the  acquisition  of  additional  slave  territory,  which  looked 
to  the  ultimate  extinction  of  slavery,  and  whose  candidate  had 
declared  the  Union  could  not  exist  half  slave  and  half  free.  If  the 
South  should  acquiesce  in  Black  Republican  rule,  slavery  would 
be  doomed,  and  the  destruction  of  slavery  would  ruin  the  South. 
(2)  The  triumph  of  a  sectional  party  established  a  sectional  des- 


235]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  235 

potism  of  the  stronger  section  over  the  weaker.  Just  now  slavery 
was  the  interest  in  gravest  danger;  but  sectional  power  might  be 
wielded  to  the  detriment  of  all  the  interests  of  the  South.  The 
Constitution  would  not  protect  the  weaker  section  because  in  the 
North  the  true  view  of  the  Union  as  a  federation  of  sovereign 
states  had  been  lost,  and  the  old  Federalist  idea  of  a  consolidated 
government  had  prevailed.  (3)  The  Constitution  was  a  compact 
between  equal  sovereign  states.  The  Personal  Liberty  laws  of 
Northern  states  were  violations  of  the  compact.  A  violation  of 
the  compact  by  some  of  the  parties  to  it  released  the  others  from 
their  obligations  under  it.  (4)  The  quarrel  between  the  sections 
had  become  so  venomous  as  to  subvert  one  of  the  purposes  for 
which  the  Constitution  had  been  formed,  namely,  to  insure  do- 
mestic tranquility.  The  constant  denunciation  of  the  South  and 
slavery  by  politicians,  press,  pulpit,  platform,  and  teachers  of  the 
North  was  a  constant  insult  to  the  South,  and  no  longer  to  be 
borne.  (5)  Secession  was  a  constitutional  remedy.  (6)  It  would, 
in  all  probability,  be  peaceful.  One  party  in  the  North  believed  in 
the  constitutional  right  of  secession.  Prominent  leaders  of  the 
other  had  declared  against  coercion.  Northern  industry  would  be 
paralyzed  by  the  interruption  of  commerce  with  the  South  which 
war  would  entail,  and  the  North  would  be  unable  to  fight.  The 
threat  of  coercion  would  unite  the  South,  and  the  Northern  people 
would  perceive  the  folly  of  waging  war  against  a  united  South.  (7) 
The  Southern  states,  even  the  cotton  states,  together  possessed 
population  and  resources  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  take  their 
place  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

The  opponents  of  immediate  and  separate  secession  agreed  with 
the  secessionists  that  the  crisis  must  not  be  allowed  to  pass  with- 
out some  action  being  taken.  They  did  not  consider  separate  and 
immediate  secession  the  proper  action,  however,  for  the  following 
reasons:  (i)  The  election  of  Lincoln  was  not  a  just  cause  for 
secession.  He  had  been  elected  in  a  constitutional  manner.  The 
politicians  of  the  South  were  partly  responsible  for  his  election. 
The  border  states  would  not  sustain  the  cotton  states  on  such  an 
issue;  it  was  doubtful  if  the  people  of  the  cotton  states  could  be 
united  upon  it.  It  would  be  better  to  wait  for  some  overt  act 
against  the  rights  of  the  South  on  the  part  of  the  Lincoln  govern- 
ment; that  would  unite  the  South.  (2)  Lincoln  would  be  a  minor- 


236     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [236 

ity  president.  Both  houses  of  Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court 
would  be  controlled  by  the  Democrats.  Lincoln  could  not  even 
choose  a  cabinet  without  consent  of  the  Senate;  the  interests  of 
the  South  were  in  no  immediate  danger.  (3)  The  Personal  Liberty 
laws  were  unconstitutional  and  unfriendly;  but  the  South  had 
never  made  a  united  effort  for  their  repeal.  This  should  be  done. 
If  appeals  failed,  retaliatory  legislation  might  be  tried.  (4)  While 
anti-slavery  sentiment  had  become  fanatical  with  many,  much  of 
the  anti-slavery  agitation  was  due  to  politicians,  North  and  South, 
who  had  used  the  slavery  question  to  inflame  the  passions  of  the 
people.  A  revolution  in  the  attitude  toward  slavery  was  even  then 
in  progress  in  the  North  and  in  England.  The  South  had  many 
friends  in  the  North;  they  should  not  be  deserted.  (5)  Peaceful 
secession  was  an  absurdity — unless,  possibly,  the  entire  South 
could  be  united.  The  South  was  not  prepared  for  war.  The  masses, 
who  must  fight  it,  were  not  convinced  of  the  necessity  for  seces- 
sion. (6)  Delay  would  unite  the  South.  Let  all  the  slave  states 
get  together  in  convention  and  deliver  an  ultimatum.  If  that  were 
rejected,  all  would  go  out  together.  The  cotton  states  had  no  right 
to  attempt  to  dictate  to  the  other  slaveholding  states.  (7)  The 
cotton  states  alone  would  make  a  contemptible,  obscure,  little 
republic  whose  rights  no  foreign  nation  would  respect.  Wars 
and  strife  would  be  its  lot.  (8)  The  dissolution  of  the  Union 
would  be  hailed  in  Europe  as  the  failure  of  free  government.  It 
was  a  duty  to  mankind  to  attempt  to  preserve  it. 

These,  it  is  believed,  were  the  arguments  most  frequently  used 
in  the  cotton  states  during  the  few  weeks  which  elapsed  between 
the  election  of  Lincoln  and  secession.6  Their  use,  however,  can 
easily  be  made  to  prove  too  much.  The  election  of  1860  turned 
ostensibly  upon  the  slavery  issue.  The  election  of  a  Republican 
president  had  for  several  years  been  discussed  and  announced 
as.  the  proper  occasion,  or  a  sufficient  cause,  for  the  secession  of  the 
Southern  states.  An  effort  had  been  made  during  the  campaign 
to  commit  as  many  as  possible  to  secession  in  case  of  Lincoln's 
election.  After  the  event,  conditional  disunionists,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  often  they  attributed  the  result  to  the  folly  or  wicked- 

The  sources  upon  which  this  summary  is  based  are  too  many  to  enumerate 
here.  Special  mention  might  be  made  of  Candler,  The  Confederate  Records  of 
the  State  of  Georgia,  Vol.  I,  and  Smith,  op.  cit. 


237]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  237 

ness  of  Southern  leaders,  could,  now  that  it  was  a  fait  accompli, 
with  justification  and  good  conscience  see  in  it  a  necessity  for 
secession.  Secession  per  se  sentiment  in  the  South  had  been  a 
growth  of  thirty  years.  It  was  a  known  and  dependable  quantity. 
It  could  not  be  increased  over  night.  Unconditional  secessionists 
would  naturally  adapt  their  arguments  to  fit  the  occasion.  The 
occasion  required  that  advantage  be  taken  of  the  excitement  of 
the  public  mind  as  a  result  of  Lincoln's  election.  Such  considera- 
tions as  these  must  be  kept  in  mind  in  any  study  of  secession. 

However,  the  secession  per  se  arguments  were  not  altogether 
neglected  during  the  canvass.  Very  few  advocates  of  secession 
spoke  for  it  without  expressing  the  view  that  the  Union  had  been 
unequal  in  its  material  benefits.  Scarcely  one  advocated  secession 
who  did  not  express  the  belief  that  secession  would  be  fol- 
lowed by  prosperity.  Said  Yancey  at  the  close  of  an  argument 
based  upon  Northern  violations  of  Southern  rights:  "While 
ever  loyal  to  a  constitutional  Union,  I  have  been  satisfied  that 
if  Alabama,  even,  reassumed  her  full  power  and  sovereignty 
it  would  be  attended  by  a  glorious  prosperity."7  Most  of  Alex- 
ander H.  Stephens's  famous  Union  speech  before  the  Georgia 
Legislature,  November  14,  1860,  was  devoted  to  proving  that  in  the 
Union  the  South  as  well  as  the  North  had  "grown  great,  prosper- 
ous, and  happy,"  and  was  in  refutation  of  one  by  Robert  Toombs, 
who  had  presented  a  contrary  view.8  DeBow's  Review  continued 
to  give  the  unconditional  disunionist  arguments.9  The  New  York 
papers  commented  upon  the  "commercial  view"  of  the  Union 
which  was  being  taken  at  the  South.10  The  existence  of  disunion- 
ists  per  se  was  assumed  at  every  point  of  the  contests  to  control 
the  conventions  which  were  to  decide  the  question  of  secession. 
Union  orators  often  prefaced  their  remarks  by  saying  that  their 
arguments  were  not  addressed  to  unconditional  disunionists  but 
only  to  those  who  preferred  a  "constitutional  Union" — i.e.,  one  in 
which  the  rights  of  the  South  would  be  respected.11  Secessionists 

7Letter  of  Nov.  15,  1860,  in  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  26. 

6Candler,  Confederate  Records  of  the  State  of  Georgia,  I,  183  ff.;  New  York 
Herald,  Nov.  22. 

"See  especially  XXX,  93-101.   See  also,  ibid.,  42-53,  114-16. 

"I  have  used  the  New  York  Herald  and  the  New  York  Times. 

"For  example,  Benj.  H.  Hill  in  speech  at  Milledgeville,  Ga.,  Nov.  15,  1860. 
Hill,  Senator  Benjamin  H.  Hill  of  Georgia,  His  Life  Speeches  and  Writings,  238. 


238     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [238 

frequently  denied  being  of  the  per  se  type;  it  may  have  been  con- 
sidered good  tactics  to  do  so. 

It  is  impossible  to  determine  with  any  degree  of  accuracy  how 
many  in  the  cotton  states  had  by  1860  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  the  true  interests  of  the  South  lay  in  separate  nationality  ir- 
respective of  the  outcome  of  the  pending  presidential  election. 
There  were  no  test  votes  on  the  question.  During  the  presidential 
campaign  supporters  of  Bell  and  of  Douglas  charged  the  Breckin- 
ridge  men  with  having  broken  up  the  Democratic  party  with  the 
design  of  making  possible  the  election  of  a  Black  Republican  presi- 
dent and  consequent  dissolutions  of  the  Union;  they  appealed  to 
the  voters  to  "rebuke"  the  secessionists.  The  statement  has  some- 
times been  made  that  the  vote  for  Breckinridge  and  the  combined 
vote  for  Bell  and  Douglas  indicate  fairly  accurately  the  relative 
strength  of  the  secessionists  and  Unionists  respectively.12  The  state- 
ment is  inaccurate.  An  analysis  of  the  result  of  the  election  shows 
that  many  voted  against  Breckinridge  to  rebuke  the  secessionists, 
and  many  were  attracted  to  Breckinridge  by  the  secessionist  ten- 
dencies of  his  following,  but  in  the  main  the  people  divided  ac- 
cording to  their  old  party  affiliations.  In  Georgia,  for  example, 
fourteen  counties  which  elected  Union  delegates  to  the  State  Con- 
vention in  December  went  for  Breckinridge  in  November;  and 
fifteen  counties  which  gave  majorities  for  Bell  and  Douglas  elected 
secession  delegates.13  Northern  Alabama  gave  a  majority  for 
Breckinridge  (although  somewhat  less  than  the  normal  Demo- 
cratic majority)  but  was  strongly  against  secession.  The  secession- 
ists from  principle  had  steadily  grown  in  numbers.  Their  leaders 
were  able  and  determined.  They  had  become  strong  enough  to 
gain  control  of  the  Democratic  party  organization  in  several 
states.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  they  were  in  a  major- 
ity except  in  South  Carolina.  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar,  describing  the  state 
of  public  opinion  in  the  South  shortly  after  Lincoln's  election, 
said:  "There  is  a  fourth  class  of  energetic,  resolute,  and  high 
spirited  men  who  consider  the  Federal  Government  a  failure,  the 
connection  of  Northern  and  Southern  States  as  unnatural,  and  the 
independence  of  the  latter  a  supreme  good.  These  are  for  im- 

"See  Avery,  History  of  Georgia,  135;  Thomas,  "Southern  Non-slaveholders 
in  the  Election  of  1860,"  Pol.  Sci.  Quar.,  XXVI,  227. 
"See  Phillips,  Georgia  and  State  Rights,  205-210. 


239]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  239 

mediate,  unconditional,  and  even  abrupt  secession  .  .  .  This  class 
is  dominant  in  one  State,  commands  perhaps  a  majority  in  an- 
other, and  is  influential  in  all."14  The  statement  was  substantially 
correct. 

After  Lincoln's  election  this  class  was  joined  by  those  who  had 
not  desired  secession  but  believed  it  necessary  under  the  circum- 
stances in  order  to  preserve  slavery.  The  classes  which  came  over 
to  secession  were  chiefly  Whigs  of  the  black  belts  and,  it  would 
seem,  the  propertied,  mercantile,  and  financial  elements  of  the  cities 
and  towns.  These  classes  had  been  conservative.  They  had  long 
protested  against  useless  agitation,  believing  that  the  best  policy 
was  one  of  conciliation  and  avoidance  of  contest.  Those  who  persist- 
ed in  their  opposition  to  secession  to  the  last  were  chiefly  the  people 
of  the  farming  districts  and  the  back  country,  where  the  slave 
population  bore  a  relatively  smaller  proportion  to  the  whites. 
They  were  Democrats  of  the  Jackson  type  or  Whigs  of  the  Clay 
type.  They  had  never  accepted  the  teachings  of  the  secessionists. 
They  were  not  hostile  to  slavery;  but  they  did  not  have  the  same 
interest  in  its  preservation  which  the  planting  class  had.  Party 
lines  largely  gave  way  during  the  contests  for  control  of  the 
state  conventions;  but  in  two  states  at  least,  Whigs  showed  them- 
selves more  favorable  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union  than 
Democrats  of  the  same  districts.  The  decision  in  a  few  localities 
was  influenced  by  considerations  peculiar  to  each.  These  general 
statements  may  be  illustrated  by  a  brief  analysis  of  the  alignment 
upon  the  secession  issue  in  each  of  the  more  populous  of  the  cot- 
ton states. 

In  South  Carolina  the  Unionists  of  1851  were  with  some  diminu- 
tion of  numbers  the  Unionists  of  1860.  The  only  locality  in  which 
there  was  a  pronounced  Union  sentiment  was  the  up-country 
farming  district  about  Greenville.  B.  F.  Perry  was  the  leader 
there,  as  he  had  been  in  1851.  Hopes  that  the  commercial  interests 
of  Charleston  would  be  adverse  to  secession  proved  ill-founded. 
The  cooperationists  of  1851  did  not  insist  upon  waiting  for  co- 
operation in  1860;  they  were  confident  it  would  come. 

The  secessionists  of  Georgia  in  1861  were  the  Southern  Rights 
party  of  1850  with  accretions.  About  the  only  prominent  leader 

"Letter  to  P.  F.  Liddell,  Dec.  10,  1860,  in  Mayes,  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar:  His  Life, 
Times  and  Speeches,  633  ff. 


24O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [240 

who  had  favored  secession  in  1850  but  opposed  it  in  1861  was 
Herschel  V.  Johnson.  Robert  Toombs,  Howell  Cobb,  and  E.  A. 
Nesbit  were  the  most  prominent  of  the  large  number  who  coun- 
selled acquiescence  in  1850  and  secession  a  decade  later.  Georgia 
was  not  divided  into  sections  as  were  several  other  Southern 
states.  The  only  large  compact  group  of  counties  which  elected 
Union  delegates  to  the  State  Convention  lay  along  the  Northern 
border.  In  these  counties  the  white  population  greatly  out- 
numbered the  black.  They  had  long  returned  Democratic  major- 
ities. They  had  been  Unionist  in  1850.  It  is  significant  that  every 
county  which  had  a  city  or  considerable  town  elected  secession 
delegates,  notwithstanding  the  white  population  preponderated 
in  most  of  them,  and  most  of  them  could  be  classified  as  Whig 
counties.  The  general  tendency  of  the  districts  in  which  the 
whites  constituted  a  majority  to  favor  maintenance  of  the  Union 
and  of  the  black  belts  to  go  for  secession  is  illustrated  by  the  ac- 
companying table.  Counties  having  a  population  more  than  50 
per  cent  slave  are  classified  as  black;  others,  white.  Counties  are 
classified  as  Whig  which  gave  Whig  majorities  at  a  majority  of 
the  presidential  elections  between  1844  and  1860;  others,  Demo- 
cratic. Counties  are  classified  as  Union,  secession,  or  divided  ac- 
cording as  their  delegations  in  the  State  Convention  voted  upon 
H.  V.  Johnson's  substitute  for  the  ordinance  of  secession,  which 
was  the  test  question.15 

Secession     Union     Divided     Totals16 

Black  counties 25  13  5  43 

White  counties 45  39  5  89 

Whig  counties 25  23  4  52 

Democratic  counties 45  29  6  80 

Whig,  black  counties 14  12  3  29 

Democratic,  black  counties 1 1  I  2  14 

Whig,  white  counties n  II  I  23 

Democratic,  white  counties 34          28  4          66 

Totals 70  52  10         132 

1! 'Journal  of  the  .  .  .  Convention  of  .  .  .  Georgia,  1861,  p.  32. 

MIf  the  counties  in  which  the  negroes  comprised  from  40  per  cent  to  50  per 
cent  of  the  total  population  be  classified  as  black,  the  number  of  such  counties 
would  be  increased  by  28,  of  which  20  elected  secession,  7,  Union  delegates,  and 
one,  a  divided  delegation.  Of  the  20,  14  were  Democratic,  6  Whig.  Of  the  7,  5 
were  Whig,  2  Democratic. 


241]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  24! 

Of  29  counties  which  elected  secession  delegates  to  the  Conven- 
tion of  Alabama,  28  lay  in  a  compact  group  in  the  southern  part  of 
the  state.  Of  the  23  Union  counties,  22  formed  a  compact  group 
in  the  northern  part  of  the  state.  This  division  corresponded 
roughly  with  the  division  between  the  black  belt  and  the  white 
counties;  only  a  few  counties  in  the  northern  half  of  the  state  had 
large  slave  populations,  and  but  few  more  in  the  southern  half 
could  be  classed  as  white.  The  alignment  also  coincided  with  an 
old  sectional  alignment  which  had  characterized  the  state  politics 
of  Alabama.17  The  basis  of  this  long  standing  sectionalism  lay 
in  part  in  the  social  differences  between  the  planting  region  and 
the  farming  section,  in  part  in  geography.  The  people  of  southern 
Alabama  found  an  outlet  for  their  productions  through  Mobile. 
The  people  of  a  large  part  of  northern  Alabama  were  cut  off  by 
mountains  from  seeking  the  same  outlet;  the  chief  outlets  for 
their  productions  were  the  Tennessee  river,  and,  for  a  few  years 
before  1860,  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  and  other  railroads.  All 
of  these  routes  led  into  or  through  Tennessee.  The  people  of 
northern  Alabama  felt  that  it  would  be  ruinous  to  their  section 
of  the  state  to  secede  unless  Tennessee  should  also  secede.  Threats 
were  made  that,  in  case  Tennessee  should  not  secede,  north  Ala- 
bama would  separate  from  the  remainder  of  the  state  and  ask  for 
union  with  her.18  The  Whigs  of  southern  Alabama,  where  they 
were  in  the  majority,  generally  went  over  to  the  secessionists. 
Such  Whig  leaders  as  H.  W.  Milliard,  T.  H.  Watts,  and  T.  J. 
Judge  now  took  their  stand  with  Yancey,  whom  they  had  hitherto 
opposed.  The  Democrats  of  northern  Alabama,  where  they  were 
in  a  large  majority,  had  always  been  of  the  Jackson  rather  than 
the  Calhoun  wing  of  the  party.19  Mobile  and  Montgomery,  the 
one  in  a  white  county,  the  other  a  black,  both  went  for  secession. 
The  accompanying  table,  with  items  defined  as  were  those  of  a 
similar  table  for  Georgia,  may  serve  to  illustrate  certain  tendencies 
to  division  in  Alabama.  It  does  not  illustrate  the  sectional  division, 
and  it  does  not  accurately  indicate  the  position  of  the  Whig  party. 

"Jack,  Sectionalism  in  Alabama. 

"Smith,  History  and  Debates  of  the  Convention  of  Alabama,  passim,  es- 
pecially remarks  of  Mr.  Clark,  of  Laurence,  pp.  81-90;  New  York  Times,  Jan. 
1 8,  1861;  Journal  of  the  Convention  .  .  .  of  South  Carolina,  1860,  1861,  and 
1862,  pp.  233-234,  report  of  A.  P.  Calhoun,  Commissioner  to  Alabama. 

"Cf.  Hodgson,  Cradle  of  the  Confederacy,  475. 


242     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l    [242 

Secession  Union  Totals 

Black  counties 18             2  20 

White  counties n  21  32 

Whig  counties 15             3  18 

Democratic  counties 14  20  34 

Whig,  black  counties 10            o  10 

Democratic,  black  counties 8             2  10 

Whig,  white  counties 5             3  8 

Democratic,  white  counties 6  18  24 

Totals 29           23  52 

The  opposition  to  secession  in  Mississippi  centered  chiefly  in  a 
few  Democratic  counties  situated  in  the  extreme  northern  part  of 
the  state  and  having  relatively  small  slave  populations,  and  in  sev- 
eral Whig  counties  with  large  black  populations  and  lying  along  the 
Mississippi  river.  The  counties  in  which  Vicksburg,  Natchez,  and 
Jackson,  the  only  considerable  towns  of  the  state,  were  located,  all 
gave  majorities  against  immediate  and  separate  secession.  It 
would  seem  that,  except  in  a  few  northern  counties  mentioned,  the 
opponents  of  secession  were  chiefly  Whigs.  In  the  Convention  the 
opponents  of  immediate  and  separate  action  were  led  by  Yerger, 
a  Whig.  The  continued  Whig  opposition  to  secession  counter- 
balanced in  this  state  the  tendency  to  division  between  districts 
having  large  and  districts  having  small  slave  populations.  This 
fact  is  illustrated  in  the  following  table: 

Secession  Union  Divided  Totals 

Black  counties 21  7  2  30 

White  counties 23  5  2  30 

Whig  counties 7  7  2  16 

Democratic  counties 37  5  2  44 

Whig,  black  counties 7  5  2  14 

Democratic,  black  counties 14  2  o  16 

Whig,  white  counties o  2  o  2 

Democratic,  white  counties 23  3  2  28 

Totals 44          12  4          60 

The  contest  in  Louisiana  presented  no  remarkable  features.  Old 
party  divisions  were  swept  away.  In  general  the  parishes  with  the 
largest  slave  populations  went  for  secession;  there  were  exceptions. 
There  were  few  parishes  which  could  not  be  considered  as  belong- 
ing to  the  black  belt.  There  were  no  marked  sectional  divisions 


243]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  243 

in  the  state.  A  group  of  Democratic  parishes  in  the  north-central 
part  of  the  state  and  another  of  Whig  parishes  near  the  Missis- 
sippi in  the  southeast  corner  of  the  state  elected  delegates  opposed 
to  immediate  secession.  New  Orleans,  which  had  always  been  con- 
sidered a  Union  stronghold  because  of  its  large  foreign  and 
Northern  population  and  its  commerce  with  states  of  the  upper 
Mississippi  valley,  elected  20  secession  and  4  Union  delegates.  The 
city  had  given  a  majority  for  the  Bell  electors  in  November;  the 
population  was  overwhelmingly  white.  The  result  in  New  Orleans 
may  be  attributed  in  part  to  the  prevalent  excitement  and  the  fail- 
ure of  the  conservative  Creole  population  to  poll  its  full  voting 
strength  in  the  convention  election. 

Several  of  the  secession  conventions,  following  the  example  of 
the  Second  Continental  Congress,  adopted  declarations  of  the 
causes  for  secession.  These  documents  were  drawn  up,  no  doubt, 
with  less  regard  to  historical  accuracy  than  to  the  effect  they  might 
have  upon  public  opinion  at  home,  in  the  border  states,  in  the 
North,  and  even  in  Europe.  They  all  rest  the  cause  of  the  South 
primarily  upon  the  necessity  of  protecting  slavery  against  North- 
ern assaults. 

The  South  Carolina  Convention  published  two  statements  of 
causes.  One,  "The  Address  of  the  People  of  South  Carolina  .  .  . 
to  the  People  of  the  Slaveholding  States  .  .  .  ,"20  was  presented 
by  a  committee  of  which  R.  B.  Rhett  was  chairman;21  the  other, 
"A  Declaration  of  the  Immediate  Causes  which  Induce  and  Justify 
the  Secession  of  South  Carolina  from  the  Federal  Union,"22  was 
brought  in  by  a  committee  of  which  C.  G.  Memminger  was  chair- 
man.23 In  all  probability  the  chairmen  of  the  respective  com- 
mittees wrote  the  reports.24  Rhett's  committee  represented  seces- 
sionists of  long  standing  of  the  more  extreme  sort.  They  were  of 
the  faction  which  had  advocated  separate  action  in  1851-1852. 
Memminger  represented  the  more  moderate  element  which  had 
constituted  the  cooperationist  party  in  1851-1852.  The  Rhett  follow- 
ing seems  to  have  wished  to  play  up  the  establishment  of  a  free 

10 'Journal,  of  the  Convention  of  South  Carolina,  467-76;  McPherson,  History 
of  the  Rebellion,  12-15;  DeBow's  Review,  XXX,  352-57. 
21 Journal,  21. 

**Ibid.,  461-466;  McPherson,  op.  cit.    15  ff. 
** Journal,  31,  39. 
**Capers,  Life  and  Times  of  C.  G.  Memminger,  289-95. 


244     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [244 

trade  republic  for  the  purpose  of  enlisting  European  support.  The 
group  of  which  Memminger  was  a  member  considered  it  of  first 
importance  to  unite  the  South.  It  would  seem  that  the  two  com- 
mittees were  appointed  in  order  that  both  factions  might  express 
their  views.  The  Convention  showed  a  disposition  to  divide  along 
these  lines  on  several  questions. 

Of  the  two  documents  the  "Address"  was  much  the  abler  and 
more  worthy  of  a  great  cause.  The  entire  substance  of  it  may  be 
found  in  Calhoun's  last  great  speech  in  the  Senate,  March  4, 
1 850,"  the  address  of  the  Nashville  Convention,26  and  Rhett's 
speech  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  which  he  avowed  himself  a 
disunionist.27  It  justified  secession  by  "the  accumulated  wrongs  of 
half  a  century."  The  great  wrong  was  represented  to  be  the  over- 
throw of  the  Constitution  and  the  transformation  of  the  federal 
republic  into  a  consolidated  democracy,  in  which  a  sectional  major- 
ity in  the  North  could  rule  over  the  minority  in  the  South  and 
carry  out  its  measures  of  "ambition,  encroachment,  and  aggrand- 
izement." A  parallel  was  drawn  between  the  relation  of  the  Thir- 
teen Colonies  to  Great  Britain  and  the  relation  of  the  South  to  the 
North.  The  South  had  been  taxed  for  Northern  benefit;  her  cities 
made  "mere  suburbs  of  Northern  cities;"  her  foreign  trade  "al- 
most annihilated."  The  much  employed  economic  interpretation 
of  the  anti-slavery  movement  was  given:  hostility  to  slavery  had 
been  made  the  criterion  of  parties  in  the  North  in  order  to  con- 
solidate the  power  of  the  section  to  rule  the  South  in  the  interest 
of  the  former.  The  address  further  portrayed  the  dangers  to  which 
slavery  was  exposed  in  a  consolidated  republic,  argued  the  consti- 
tutional right  of  secession,  and  appealed  to  the  slaveholding  states 
to  form  a  slaveholding  confederacy. 

Memminger's  "Declaration  of  Immediate  Causes"  was  a  brief 
constitutional  argument.  It  stated  the  compact  theory  of  the  Con- 
stitution, and  contended  that  the  Northern  states  had  violated  the 
letter  of  the  compact  by  their  Personal  Liberty  laws,  and  the  spirit 
of  it  by  the  anti-slavery  agitation  and  the  election  to  the  presi- 
dency of  the  candidate  of  a  sectional  party.  The  declaration  was 
attacked  by  Maxcy  Gregg,  L.  W.  Spratt,  and  others  on  the  ground 

"Works,  IV,  542-73- 

^National  Intelligencer,  July  13,  1850. 

"Cong.  Globe,  32  Cong.,  i  Sess.,  Appx.,  42-48.    See  above,  p.  83. 


245]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  245 

of  incompleteness.  It  set  forth  only  some  of  the  causes;  it  omitted 
the  tariff  altogether,  and  laid  emphasis  on  "an  incomparably  un- 
important point."  The  reply  was  made  that  Southern  congress- 
men voted  for  the  existing  tariff;  the  Whig  party  had  always  fa- 
vored the  tariff;  the  tariff  argument  would  not  appeal  to  Missouri, 
Kentucky,  and  Louisiana;  the  issue  should  not  be  raised  now. 
Memminger  thought  it  expedient  to  put  their  action  before  all 
the  world  upon  the  simple  matter  of  wrongs  on  the  question  of 
slavery,  and  that  question  turned  upon  the  fugutive  slave  law.28 

The  declarations  of  causes  adopted  by  the  Georgia,  Mississippi, 
and  Texas  conventions  bore  greater  resemblance  to  Memminger's 
"Declaration  of  Causes"  than  to  Rhett's  "Address."  Robert 
Toombs  wrote  the  Georgia  statement  of  causes.29  He  told  how  the 
North  had  outgrown  the  South  in  material  prosperity,  and  at- 
tributed the  disparity  to  bounties,  tariffs,  subsidies,  and  other 
protective  legislation.  He  charged  that  the  anti-slavery  agitation 
had  been  fomented  in  the  East  for  the  purposes  of  winning  over 
the  West  from  her  Southern  alliance  and  uniting  East  and  West 
to  wield  the  power  of  the  government  to  promote  sectional  inter- 
ests. The  chief  theme  of  the  document,  however,  was  the  rise  of 
the  anti-slavery  party,  the  history  of  aggression  upon  aggression, 
and  their  culmination  in  the  victory  of  a  sectional  party,  which 
left  no  protection  for  the  South  but  the  Constitution.  No  confi- 
dence was  placed  in  Republican  promises  to  respect  the  Constitu- 
tion: "They  [the  Southern  people]  know  the  value  of  parchment 
rights,  in  treacherous  hands,  and  therefore,  they  refuse  to  commit 
their  own  to  the  rulers  whom  the  North  offers  us."  The  Mississippi 
declaration  is  fairly  epitomized  in  two  sentences:  "Our  position  is 
thoroughly  identified  with  the  institution  of  slavery — the  greatest 
material  interest  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Utter  subjugation  awaits  us 
in  the  Union,  if  we  should  consent  longer  to  remain  in  it."30  The 
Texas  declaration  added  little  to  this  except  the  assertion  that 

"Debate  in  National  Intelligencer,  Dec.  27,  29;  McPherson,  op.  cit.,  16  ff. 

" 'Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Georgia,  1861,  pp.  104-113.  Mr.  Nesbit, 
chairman  of  the  committee  to  report  an  ordinance  of  secession,  said  the  state- 
ment was  written  by  Toombs.  Journal,  104. 

^Journal  of  the  State  Convention  [of  Mississippi],  86-88. 


246     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840 1 86 1    [246 

the  Federal  government  had  failed  to  protect  life  and  property 
upon  the  frontier.31 

President  Davis  devoted  a  large  part  of  his  first  message  to  the 
Confederate  Congress,  April  29,  1861,  to  a  discussion  of  the  causes 
of  secession.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  provided  for  a 
jederal  government,  he  said;  but  that  had  not  prevented  the  rise  of 
a  "political  school  which  has  persistently  claimed  that  the  Govern- 
ment thus  formed  was  not  a  compact  between  States,  but  was  in 
effect  a  National  Government,  set  up  above  and  over  the  States." 
This  doctrine  gained  the  more  ready  assent  in  the  North  because, 
as  that  section  gained  preponderance  in  Congress,  self-interest 
tempted  her  representatives  to  use  their  power  to  promote 
Northern  interests  at  the  expense  of  the  South.  "Long  and  angry 
controversies  grew  out  of  these  attempts,  often  successful,  to  bene- 
fit one  section  of  the  country  at  the  expense  of  the  other."  In  addi- 
tion there  had  existed  for  nearly  half  a  century  another  subject  of 
discord,  slavery,  which  involved  interests  of  such  "transcendent 
magnitude"  that  the  permanence  of  the  Union  had  long  been  en- 
dangered. With  slavery  as  the  issue  there  had  developed  in  the 
North  a  sectional  party,  which  had  finally  gained  control  of  the 
government.  Meanwhile,  great  interests  had  developed  in  the 
South.  "With  interests  of  such  overwhelming  magnitude  imper- 
illed," the  people  of  the  South  could  not  consent  to  live  under  a 
sectional  government.32 

Some  people  in  the  North  believed  that  President  Davis  had 
emphasized  the  unequal  operation  of  the  government  upon  the 
economic  interests  of  the  sections  and  minimized  the  slavery  ques- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  influencing  opinion  abroad.  They  were  dis- 
posed to  take,  as  a  more  accurate  interpretation  of  the  causes  of 
secession,  a  speech  of  Vice-President  Stephens  in  which  he  spoke 
of  slavery  as  the  corner  stone  of  the  new  republic.  The  speech 
accorded  well  with  Stephens's  earlier  utterances.  He,  it  should  be 
said,  was  one  of  the  more  conservative  leaders  of  the  South;  he 
had  never  shown  sympathy  with  the  unconditional  disunionists; 
he  had  taken  little  interest  in  those  progressive  Southern  move- 
ments which  have  been  described;  he  opposed  secession  to  the 

"Texas  Library,  and  Historical  Commission,  Journal  of  the  Secession  Con- 
vention of  Texas,  1861,  pp.  61  ff. 
Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  614  ff. 


247]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  247 

last.  Moreover,  his  "Corner  Stone"  speech  should  be  read  in  its 
entirety.  He  did  not  fail  to  pay  his  respects  to  a  protective  tariff 
and  appropriations  for  internal  improvement.  "This  old  thorn  of 
the  tariff,  which  was  the  cause  of  so  much  irritation  in  the  old 
body  politic,  is  removed  forever  from  the  new.  .  .  .  The  true  prin- 
ciple is  to  subject  the  commerce  of  every  locality  to  whatever 
burdens  may  be  necessary  to  facilitate  it."  The  people  of  the 
North,  he  said,  wanted  to  preserve  the  Union  because  "they  are 
disinclined  to  give  up  the  benefits  they  derive  from  slave  labor." 
According  to  the  reporter,  "Mr.  Stephens  reviewed  at  some  length 
the  extravagance  and  profligacy  of  appropriations  by  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States  for  several  years  past,  .  .  ,"33 

Unofficial  Southern  essays  at  interpreting  events  after  their  oc- 
currence also  fail  to  show  general  agreement.  Of  them,  too,  it 
must  be  said  that  they  were  not  made  to  facilitate  the  task  of  the 
student.  The  Charleston  Mercury,  speaking  of  the  Confederate 
Constitution,  said:  "The  system  of  partial  legislation  in  the  im- 
position of  taxes  which  has  been  the  prime  cause  of  all  the  cor- 
ruption and  sectionalism  which  have  finally  overthrown  the  Union 
of  the  United  States  is  repudiated  by  this  constitution."34  Ac- 
cording to  J.  D.  B.  DeBow:  "At  bottom,  the  quarrel  between  the 
North  and  South  is,  Shall  the  North  support  itself,  or,  by  means 
of  Government  action  and  machinery,  be  supported  by  the  South? 
It  is  the  old  quarrel  of  nullification  continued  under  a  new 
name."35  A  report  submitted  for  the  consideration  of  the 
Merchants'  and  Planters'  Convention,  at  Macon,  Georgia,  October, 
1 86 1,  expressed  the  thought  that  the  "chief  of  the  causes  of  our 
separation  must  be  found  in  questions  affecting  our  selling  the 
products  of  the  soil  and  the  purchase  of  our  supplies  from  others."36 
Governor  Joseph  E.  Brown,  of  Georgia,  who  was  already  defend- 
ing state  rights  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Confederate 
government,  in  his  annual  message,  November,  1861,  followed  a 
chain  of  reasoning  quite  like  that  of  President  Davis  in  the  mes- 
sage already  referred  to.  The  people  of  the  North  had  become 
consolidationists  because  they  had  found  that  tariff  laws,  naviga- 

"Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  pp.  44-49. 

"Mar.  15,  1861. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXXI,  2.   See  articles  in  ibid.,  XXXI,  13-17,  69-77. 

"Ibid.,  XXXI,  333. 


248      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [248 

tion  acts,  fishing  laws,  etc.  had  fostered  their  interests.  "By  the 
instrumentality  of  these  laws,  the  government  of  the  United 
States  has  poured  the  wealth  of  the  productive  South  into  the  lap 
of  the  bleak  and  sterile  North,  .  .  ."  The  slavery  question  had 
been  used  to  excite  the  masses.  The  Southern  people  had  tried  to 
maintain  state  rights.  In  the  same  message,  with  a  different  bear- 
ing (the  capacity  of  the  South  for  self-government),  he  praised 
slavery  as  conducive  to  the  perpetuity  of  republican  institutions.37 

Others  put  the  emphasis  on  other  causes.  L.  W.  Spratt,  the  in- 
defatigible  advocate  of  reopening  the  African  slave  trade,  believed 
that  the  South  had  seceded,  or  should  have  seceded,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  perpetuating  slave  institutions;  by  the  provision  of  the 
Confederate  Constitution  prohibiting  the  foreign  slave  trade,  the 
mission  of  the  South  had  been  betrayed.38  The  Reverend  Dr.  J. 
H.  Thornwell,  some  time  editor  of  the  Southern  Quarterly  Review, 
sought  to  put  the  Southern  cause  upon  the  highest  possible  plane. 
The  Southern  states  had  seceded  because  of  "the  profound  convic- 
tion that  the  Constitution,  in  its  relations  to  slavery,  has  been  vir- 
tually repealed."  He  repudiated  the  suggestion  "that  all  this  fer- 
ment is  nothing  but  the  result  of  a  mercernary  spirit  on  the  part 
of  the  cotton-growing  states,  fed  by  Utopian  dreams  of  aggrandize- 
ment and  wealth,  to  be  realized  under  the  auspices  of  free-trade,  in 
a  separate  confederacy  of  their  own."  Considerations  of  such  char- 
acter had  been  advanced  in  the  South  not  to  justify  secession,  but 
to  reconcile  her  to  the  necessity  of  it.  Neither  had  secession  been 
desired  to  make  possible  the  reopening  of  the  African  slave  trade; 
the  agitation  of  that  question  had  only  been  the  natural  reaction 
of  irresponsible  Southern  hot-heads  to  Garrisonian  abolition  in 
the  North.39 

Numerous  incidents  and  miscellaneous  comments  illustrate  how 
firmly  grounded  were  the  opinions  relative  to  the  economic  effects 
of  disunion,  which  had  been  inculcated  by  years  of  disunionist 
propaganda.  Mayor  McBeth,  of  Charleston,  notified  agents  of 
Northern  steamship  lines  that  he  would  not  permit  the  landing  of 

"Candler,  Confederate  Records  of  the  State  of  Georgia,  II,  77-125. 

'"Letter  to  Hon.  John  Perkins,  of  Louisiana,  in  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  II, 

357-65- 

"The  State  of  the  Country:    An  Article  Republished  from   the  Southern 
Presbyterian  Review  (pamphlet,  New  York,  1861),  pp.  6  ff. 


249]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  249 

steerage  passengers  unless  it  was  guaranteed  that  they  would  not 
become  public  charges.  He  expected  that  paupers,  fearing  destitu- 
tion in  the  North  as  a  result  of  the  loss  of  Southern  trade,  would 
flock  South.40  Eli  T.  Shorter,  of  Alabama,  wrote  to  a  friend  in 
Missouri  saying  that  the  people  of  the  South  greatly  sympathized 
with  the  conservatives  of  the  North  and  would  gladly  preserve 
them,  if  possible,  from  the  general  bankruptcy  which  awaited  New 
York  City.41  It  seems  to  have  been  expected  that  Northern  ship- 
ping and  Northern  capital  would  be  transferred  to  the  South,  and 
from  time  to  time  during  the  winter  of  1860-1861  reports  came  of 
such  transfers  which  had  been  or  were  about  to  be  made.42  Evi- 
dence will  be  given  later  of  the  disposition  shown  at  an  early  date 
to  take  advantage  of  secession  to  promote  schemes  for  direct 
trade;  it  was  said  to  be  desirable  to  get  "started  right."  As  late 
as  July,  1861,  DeBow  wrote:  "That  magic  word,  Secession,  has 
transferred  thousands  of  millions  of  wealth  from  the  North  to  the 
South.  The  North  is  bankrupt.  Her  people  must  migrate  to  the 
West  or  starve.  .  .  .  They  cannot  produce  their  own  food  and 
clothing,  and  will  have  nothing  wherewith  to  purchase  it.  ... 
Their  local  wealth,  derived  from  houses,  factories,  cities,  railroads, 
etc.,  ceased  to  exist  the  instant  secession  became  an  accomplished 
fact."43 

In  the  border  slave  states,  where  the  majority  did  not  believe 
that  the  election  of  Lincoln  justified  precipitate  abandonment  of 
the  Union,  frequent  expression  was  given  by  opponents  of  seces- 
sion of  a  belief  that  fears  for  slavery  did  not  constitute  the  chief 
cause  for  the  action  of  the  cotton  states,  but  were  largely  a  pretext. 
A  notable  example  is  found  in  Governor  Letcher's  message  to  the 

"New  York  Herald,  Nov.  15,  1860-.  Also  ibid.,  Nov.  20,  quoting  the  New 
Orleans  Courier  and  Bee  on  effects  of  secession  upon  North  and  South;  ibid.,  Dec. 
n,  on  a  threatened  exodus  to  the  South. 

"Quoted  in  New  York  Times,  Jan.  12,  1861. 

"Ibid,  Feb.  25,  1861;  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  19,  Dec.  20,  1861;  G.  B. 
Lamar  to  Howell  Cobb,  Mar.  25,  1861,  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence. 

"De  Bow's  Review,  XXXI,  5.  Many  others  wrote  and  spoke  in  a  similar 
strain,  for  example,  Vice-President  Stephens,  speech  at  Augusta,  July  n,  1861, 
in  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  II,  Doc.  p.  276  ff.;  Secretary  of  State  Toombs, 
instructions  to  Yancey,  Rost,  and  Mann,  commissioners  to  Great  Britain, 
France,  etc.,  Mar.  16,  1861,  in  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Confed- 
eracy, II,  7. 


250     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [250 

General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  January  7,  1861.  The  cotton  states 
in  seceding  without  attempting  to  secure  cooperation  of  all  the 
slaveholding  states  were  consulting  their  own  interests,  he  said. 
Why  should  not  Virginia  consider  her  own?  He  criticized  the 
tendency  of  Virginians  to  ignore  the  just  complaints  of  their  own 
state  against  the  North  and  to  unite  in  the  complaints  of  the 
cotton  states.  "The  complaints  of  those  states  are  rather  against 
the  financial  and  commercial  policy  of  the  Federal  Government, 
than  any  action  or  want  of  action  on  the  subject  of  slavery."44 

John  A.  Gilmer,  of  North  Carolina,  said  secession  had  been  an 
object  in  South  Carolina  for  thirty  or  forty  years.  The  secession- 
ists had  desired  Lincoln's  election.  They  did  not  want  guarantees 
for  slavery.45  Governor  Hicks,  of  Maryland,  took  a  similar  view.48 
The  National  Intelligencer  put  a  desire  to  reopen  the  slave  trade 
as  the  foremost  cause  of  secession.47  John  P.  Kennedy,  of  Mary- 
land, a  former  secretary  of  the  navy,  told  the  history  of  disunion 
sentiment  in  South  Carolina.  As  causes  of  secession  he  mentioned 
a  disposition  of  Southern  leaders  to  undervalue  the  strength  and 
beneficence  of  the  Union;  the  belief  that  the  planting  states  paid 
all  the  taxes;  visions  of  a  great  Southern  confederacy  including 
Cuba,  San  Domingo,  Mexico,  and  perhaps  Central  America,  with 
free  trade,  powerful  alliances,  and  peopled  by  "swarms  of  reen- 
forcements  from  the  shores  of  Africa."  He  did  not  overlook  the 
fact,  however,  that  the  slavery  quarrel  had  become  "venomous."48 
John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  said  the  disunion  movement  was  led  by 
men  of  distinguished  ability  with  whom  the  expediency  of  seces- 
sion was  a  foregone  conclusion,  and  who  only  waited  a  plausible 
pretext — "men  whose  imaginations  have  been  taken  possession  of, 
and  their  judgments  led  captive,  by  the  dazzling,  but,  as  I  think, 
delusive  vision  of  a  new,  great,  and  glorious  republican  empire, 
stretching  far  into  the  South."49  Andrew  Johnson  and  W.  G. 
Brownlow,  of  Tennessee,  attributed  secession  to  the  machinations 

"Virginia,  Senate  Journal  and  Documents,  Extra  Session,  1 86 1,  pp.  9-49,  es- 
pecially, 13-21. 

"Cong.  Globe,  36  Cong,  2  Sess.,  580  ff. 

"Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  443. 

"Editorials  of  Nov.  29,  Dec.  29,  1860. 

"The  Border  States,  Their  Power  and  Duty  in  the  Present  Disordered  Con- 
dition of  the  Country.  (Pamphlet,  46  pp.) 

"Letter  to  A.  Burwell,  Dec.  6,  1860,  in  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  12. 


25l]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  25! 

of  disappointed  politicians,   and   emphasized  the   long  standing 
hatred  of  the  Union  in  South  Carolina.00 

"A  Kentuckian,"  in  an  able  pamphlet,  South  Carolina,  Disunion, 
and  a  Mississippi  Valley  Confederacy,  seemed  to  be  well  acquaint- 
ed with  South  Carolina  history  for  thirty  years,  and  ascribed  to 
her  the  leadership  in  the  disunion  movement.  "Having  made  up 
her  mind  to  disunion  for  the  sake  of  re-opening  the  African  Slave 
Trade,  or  for  the  sake  of  some  other  supposed  local  advantage  of 
her  own,  or  for  the  sake  of  vengeance  in  her  gratification  of  her 
hate  to  the  Union  and  the  nation,  her  policy  was  to  precipitate  as 
many  of  the  other  Cotton  States  as  she  could  into  disunion  also." 
Among  other  objects  he  mentioned  the  "cherished  policy  of  free 
trade,  direct  taxation,  and  no  tariff,"  and  disappointed  political 
aspirations.51  Union  men  in  Missouri  tried  to  account  for  the 
secession  movement  by  other  causes  than  fears  for  slavery  in  a 
Union  with  the  free  states.  General  John  B.  Henderson,  Demo- 
crat of  the  Benton  wing,  said:  "They  never  left  this  confederacy 
...  on  account  of  any  fear  whatever  as  to  their  rights  in  negro 
property.  It  is  a  false  idea  of  commercial  greatness.  They  have, 
since  1832,  inculcated  a  doctrine  that  a  tariff  upon  imports  is  a 
mere  burden  upon  exports;  that  their  cities  have  languished  under 
the  revenue  laws  of  the  Government;  that  their  fields  have  become 
barren  under  the  oppressions  and  actions  of  an  unjust  govern- 
ment. The  merchant  of  Charleston  today,  candidly  and  sincerely 
believes,  in  case  his  government  can  be  established,  that  South 
Carolina  can  be  separated  from  the  Federal  Union,  Charleston 
in  the  course  of  ten  years  will  become  a  New  York.  The  merchants 
of  Savannah  have  the  same  opinion,  the  merchants  of  Mobile  and 
the  merchants  of  New  Orleans  have  the  same  opinion,  and  unfor- 
tunately I  must  say  that  this  delusion  of  the  day  is  entertained 
by  some  of  the  merchants  of  the  West."  Another  cause  for  seces- 
sion was  the  desire  to  filibuster  for  Cuba  and  Central  America. 


""Speech  of  Andrew  Johnson  in  the  Senate,  Feb.  5,  1861,  in  Cong.  Globe, 
36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  744  ff.;  W.  G.  Brownlow,  Sketches  of  the  Rise,  Progress,  and 
Decline  of  Secession;  etc.,  1 10  and  passim. 

•'Pp.  4,  8. 


252     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [252 

But  the  excuse  which  had  been  given  for  secession  was  the  one 
which  found  sympathy  among  the  people  of  Missouri.52 

In  the  North  also  there  was  from  the  first  a  large  class  who 
professed  to  believe  that  the  cotton  states  had  seceded  chiefly  for 
other  reasons  than  fears  for  slavery  and  a  belief  that  constitution- 
al rights  had  been  disregarded.  This  class  reposed  no  confidence 
in  compromises  and  concessions  as  Union  savers  or  restorers;  no 
doubt  most  of  them  would  have  been  opposed  to  compromise  or 
concession  upon  the  slavery  issue  in  any  case.  They  advanced 
various  explanations  of  secession.  William  H.  Seward,  in  a 
speech  of  which  the  Union  savers  had  expected  much,  credited  dis- 
union chiefly  to  the  defeat  of  Southern  politicians  and  their  loss  of 
power  to  govern  the  country.  But  he  did  not  overlook  the  influence 
of  the  unconditional  disunionists:  "More  than  thirty  years  there 
has  existed  a  considerable — though  not  heretofore  a  formidable — 
mass  of  citizens  in  certain  States  situate  near  or  around  the  delta 
of  the  Mississippi,  who  believe  that  the  Union  is  less  conducive 
to  the  welfare  and  greatness  of  those  States  than  a  smaller  con- 
federacy, embracing  only  slave  States,  would  be."53  Senators 
Wade,  of  Ohio,  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  Cameron,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, Chandler,  of  Michigan,  and  Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  inclined 
to  take  the  view  that  secession  was  the  outcome  of  a  "rule  or 
ruin"  policy  on  the  part  of  Southern  leaders.54  Senator  Simmons, 
of  Rhode  Island,  engaged  in  a  colloquy  with  Thomas  L.  Clingman 
relative  to  the  effect  of  secession  upon  revenues  North  and  South 
and  upon  the  imports  of  the  respective  sections.  "I  know,"  he 
said,  "part  of  this  scheme  has  been  to  make  Charleston  the  great 
commercial  emporium  of  the  South."53  A  select  committee  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  reported  that  "the  difficulties  growing 
out  of  the  existence  of  slavery,  however  viewed  by  the  common 
people,  are  so  far  as  the  leaders  are  concerned,  but  a  mere  pre- 
tense, their  real  object  being  to  overthrow  the  Government, 


^Journal  and  Proceedings  of  the  Missouri  State  Convention  .  .  .  1861,  Pro- 
ceedings, p.  86.  See  also  majority  report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Commissbner 
from  Georgia,  ibid.,  Journal,  p.  50  ff. 

"Cong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  343,  speech  in  the  Senate,  Jan.  12,  1861. 

"Ibid.,  102,  1088  ff.,  494.,  1370,  1380  (in  order). 

KIbid.,  1476. 


253]  SECESSION  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  253 

that  a  Southern  Confederacy,  of  a  military  character  may 
arise.  .  .  ."56 

The  New  York  Times  consistently  sought  other  motives  for  se- 
cession. An  editorial  of  January  4,  1861,  gave  the  desire  to  reopen 
the  African  slave  trade  a  prominent  place  among  the  motives  for 
secession.  A  week  later  "the  expectations  of  great  advantages" 
which  seaboard  cities  were  to  derive  from  a  free  trade  policy  were 
canvassed.57  Another  editorial  of  the  same  issue  considered  the 
long  taught  belief  in  the  South  that,  "they  supported  the  Union — 
that  they  contributed  far  more  than  the  Northern  States  to  the 
support  of  the  Government — that  the  industry  of  the  North  was 
entirely  dependent  upon  their  staples — and  that  if  these  should 
be  withdrawn  universal  bankruptcy,  beggary,  and  ruin  would 
instantly  overtake  the  people  of  the  North."  Another  editorial  re- 
viewed a  disunion  per  se  article  by  Major  W.  H.  Chase,  of  Flor- 
ida, in  DeBow's  Review;58  another  was  headed,  "Proportion  of 
the  Burdens  of  Government  Borne  by  the  South;"59  another  dealt 
with  schemes  to  form  "a  grand  Slave  Empire  to  embrace  the 
islands  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  territories  facing  it."60  A 
number  of  articles  of  this  character  from  the  Times  were  published 
as  a  pamphlet  under  the  caption,  The  Effect  of  Secession  upon  the 
Commercial  Relations  between  the  North  and  the  South,  appar- 
ently intended  to  influence  opinion  in  the  border  states.  It  asserted 
that  "the  leading  motive  or  inducement  to  Secession  has  undoubt- 
edly been  the  anticipated  material  advantages  that  were  to 
result."61 

Another  able  pamphlet,  The  Five  Cotton  States  and  New  York, 
etc.,  took  up  and  refuted  in  order  the  Southern  views  that  (i) 
"the  commercial  policy  of  the  United  States  is  injurious  to  South- 
ern interests;"  (2)  "the  present  course  of  business  in  the  United 
States  is  extremely  unfavorable,  if  not  unjust,  to  the  South,  espec- 

KCong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  1294. 

"Jan.  12. 

MJan.  15,  "The  Ideas  on  which  Secession  is  Based." 

B'Jan.  17. 

60Feb.  5. 

"P.  3.  Daniel  Lord  was  the  author. 


254     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [254 

ially,  the  five  cotton  states  .  .' .;"  (3)  cotton  is  king.62  Another 
pamphleteer,  Samuel  Powell,  in  Notes  on  "Southern  Wealth  and 
Northern  Profits,"  Kettell,  thought  Kettell's  thesis,  namely,  that 
the  South  had  supplied  the  capital  which  had  accumulated  at  the 
North,  was  the  keynote  of  secession.  He  refuted  Kettell's  state- 
ments seriatim.  Even  the  New  York  Herald,  for  which  no  conces- 
sions or  guarantees  to  slavery  were  too  great,  occasionally  as- 
cribed to  secessionists  other  motives  (similar  to  those  already 
mentioned)  than  a  desire  to  force  concessions  from  the  North,  or 
to  protect  the  institution  of  slavery.68 

It  is  believed  that  such  expressions  as  those  quoted  above  were 
representative  of  the  professed  opinions  of  a  considerable  class 
in  the  Northern  and  border  states,  and  that  these  opinions  had 
some  basis  in  fact.  The  majority  of  the  people  of  the  North  and 
of  the  Unionists  in  the  border  states,  however,  seem,  clearly,  to 
have  been  of  the  opinion  that  the  cotton  states  had  seceded 
chiefly  because  of  a  justifiable  or  mistaken  belief  that  slavery  was 
endangered,  and  that  constitutional  rights  had  been  violated  in 
the  Union.  In  the  opinion  of  many,  perhaps  most  of  this  class, 
at  least  before  the  organization  of  the  Provisional  Confederate 
government,  the  Southern  states,  with  the  exception  of  South 
Carolina,  could  be  saved  to  the  Union  by  concessions  and  guar- 
antees relative  to  slavery.  After  the  organization  of  the  Confeder- 
acy the  primary  object  of  the  compromisers  was  to  save  the  border 
states. 


"Stephen  Colwell,  The  Five  Cotton  States  and  New  York,  or  Remarks  upon 
the  Social  and  Economic  Aspects  of  the  Southern  Political  Crisis,  Jan.  1861, 
64  pp.  See  also  J.  F.  Clarke,  Session,  Concession,  or  Self-Possession.  Which? 
(Pamphlet,  Boston,  1861,  48  pp.)  pp.  7-11. 

Tor  example,  Nov.  19,  1860,  Financial  and  Commercial;  Dec.  8,  Feb.  19, 
1861,  editorials. 


CHAPTER  X 

EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  THE  CON- 
FEDERATE STATES,  1861-1862 

As  soon  as  secession  was  assured  in  the  cotton  states,  indica- 
tions were  given  of  an  intention  to  take  advantage  of  political  sep- 
aration from  the  North  to  promote  industrial  and  commercial  in- 
dependence. In  studying  these  indications,  however,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  from  the  very  first  individual  seceded  states  and 
the  Confederate  government  were  not  free  to  formulate  economic 
policies  with  reference  solely  to  their  economic  effects.  In  the 
brief  period  before  Sumter  the  policies  were  determined  largely 
by  the  necessity  of  winning  over  the  border  slave  states,  the  desire 
to  avoid  war  with  the  North,  which  leaders  feared,  if  they  did  not 
expect,  and  the  need  for  gaining  friends  in  Europe.  After  Sumter 
everything  else  had  to  be  subordinated  to  the  conduct  of  the  war. 

An  ordinance  was  adopted  by  the  Georgia  Convention,  Janu- 
ary 29,  1 86 1,  declaring  it  to  be  "the  fixed  policy  of  Georgia  to  pro- 
tect all  investments  already  made,  or  which  may  be  hereafter 
made  by  citizens  of  other  states,  in  mines  or  manufacturing  in  this 
state,  and  capital  invested  in  any  other  permanent  improvement."1 
A  resolution  was  introduced  in  the  Louisiana  Convention  to  in- 
struct the  committee  on  commerce  to  report  on  the  expediency  of 
exempting  from  taxation  all  capital  and  property  employed  in 
manufacturing  within  the  state  for  a  term  of  five  years.2  In  the 
Texas  Convention  a  resolution  was  introduced  recommending  that 
the  Legislature  give  adequate  protection  to  the  manufacturing  in- 
terests and  enterprises  of  the  state.3  From  South  Carolina  and 
elsewhere,  before  Sumter,  came  reports  of  efforts  of  the  people 
to  make  themselves  independent  of  the  North  industrially  as  well 
as  politically.  Arguments  in  favor  of  home  industry  appeared. 
Southern  manufacturers  and  merchants  appealed  for  patronage 
on  the  ground  that  the  South  must  be  independent  in  all  respects.4 

Secession  gave  an  impetus  to  projects  for  establishing  direct 

1 Journal  .  .  .  of  the  Convention  .  .  .  of  Georgia,  1861,  p.  117. 
^Official  Journal  .  .  .  of  the  Convention  .  .  .  of  Louisiana,  34. 
journal  of  the  Secession  Convention  of  Texas,  1861,  p.  41. 
'DeBow's  Review,  XXX,  371;  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  26,   1861,  quoting 
a  number  of  such  appeals;  editorial  commenting  thereon,  ibid.,  Mar.  27. 

255 


256     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [256 

trade  with  Europe.  Governor  Gist,  of  South  Carolina,  asked  the 
Legislature  to  guarantee  the  interest  of  5  per  cent  per  annum  upon 
the  capital  invested  in  a  line  of  steamers  to  Liverpool,  which  pri- 
vate parties  proposed  to  establish.5  In  February,  following,  a 
public  meeting  was  held  in  Charleston  to  consider  a  well  advanced 
project  for  establishing  a  line  of  three  screw  propellers  between 
Charleston  and  England.  A  committee  was  appointed  to  solicit 
subscriptions.6  The  Legislature  of  Alabama  chartered  a  "Direct 
Trade  and  Exchange  Company."7  The  Committee  on  Commerce, 
Revenue,  and  Navigation  of  the  Louisiana  Convention  was  in- 
structed to  report  upon  the  propriety  of  state  aid  for  direct  com- 
munication by  steam  between  New  Orleans  and  Europe.8 

Governor  Brown,  of  Georgia,  discussed  the  subject  of  direct 
trade  in  his  message  to  the  Legislature,  December  8,  1860.  He 
asked  authority  to  send  a  commissioner  to  Europe  to  investigate 
a  company  which  had  offered  to  establish  a  line  of  five  steamers 
to  made  weekly  trips  between  Savannah  and  a  European  port  if 
the  state  of  Georgia  would  guarantee  a  5  per  cent  return  upon  the 
investment.9  The  Legislature  chartered  the  "Belgian  American 
Company."10  Thomas  Butler  King  was  sent  to  Europe  to  promote 
direct  trade  and  to  represent  the  state  of  Georgia  in  England, 
France,  and  Belgium.  He  was  instructed  "to  not  fail  to  present  a 
clear  view  of  the  effect  which  our  Federal  connection  with  the 
Northern  States  has  had  in  attracting,  or  forcing  our  commercial 
exchanges  with  Europe,  coast-wise  through  the  port  and  City  of 
New  York  .  .  ."  He  was  to  show  further  that  the  result  of  seces- 
sion "must  necessarily  be  to  establish  direct  commercial  and  diplo- 
matic intercourse  with  all  the  world."  Northern  manufacturers 
also,  who  had  been  protected  by  a  tariff,  must  now  compete  on 
equal  terms  with  European  manufacturers.11  When  the  Legisla- 
ture met  again  in  November,  1861,  it  had  at  least  three  direct 
trade  projects  to  consider.  Two  had  resulted  from  King's  mission; 
the  third  was  that  of  an  association  of  Georgians  who  would 

"New  York  Herald,  Dec.  I,  1860. 

'Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XLIV,  524-5;  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  4,  22. 

^De Bow's  Review,  XXX,  381. 

"Official  Journal  .  .  .  of  the  Convention  .  .  .  of  Louisiana,  36. 

"Candler,  Confederate  Records  of  the  State  of  Georgia,  II,  6,  7. 

10Ibid.,  II,  116;  Avery,  History  of  Georgia,  131. 

"Candler,  op.  cit.  II,  20  ff. 


257]     EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  CONFEDERATE  STATES      257 

establish  a  line  of  steamers  as  soon  as  the  blockade  should  be 
raised  if  the  Legislature  would  subsidize  their  enterprise.12  In 
urging  the  matter  of  direct  trade,  Governor  Brown  said:  "But  our 
deliverance  from  political  bondage  will  be  of  little  advantage  if  we 
remain  in  a  state  of  commercial  dependence."13 

In  March,  1861,  a  committee  of  the  Provisional  Congress  of  the 
Confederacy  was  formed  to  organize  an  excursion  trip  from  Sa- 
vannah to  Antwerp  via  Havre  for  the  purpose  of  affording  South- 
ern merchants  an  opportunity  to  make  arrangements  for  direct 
importations.14  Up  to  the  time  of  his  departure  for  England  as 
a  commissioner  of  the  Confederate  States,  Colonel  A.  Dudley 
Mann  pursued  his  plans  for  establishing  direct  trade.15  A  conven- 
tion of  merchants,  bankers,  and  others  met  in  Macon,  in  October, 
1 86 1,  to  devise  a  plan  to  establish  credits  between  the  Confederacy 
and  Europe.  DeBow's  Review  commended  the  purpose  of  the  con- 
vention, saying,  "It  is  necessary  to  start  right  on  the  removal  of 
the  blockade,  in  order  that  our  former  vassalage  to  the  North  may 
not  be  renewed."16 

Immediately  South  Carolina  had  seceded  from  the  Union,  her 
Convention  and  Legislature  were  confronted  by  the  problem  of 
framing  tariff  and  navigation  laws.  Each  of  the  other  states 
which  seceded  before  the  organization  of  the  Confederacy  had  to 
solve  the  same  problem.  When  the  Provisional  government  was 
formed  the  task  devolved  upon  it.  The  development  of  the  tariff 
and  navigation  policies  of  the  Confederacy  was  watched  with  con- 
siderable interest  at  home,  in  the  border  states,  in  the  North, 
and  in  Europe,  and  throws  some  light  upon  the  motives  of 
Southern  leaders. 

When  South  Carolina  seceded,  hot  heads  in  the  Convention 
wished  to  throw  the  ports  open  to  the  commerce  of  the  world  at 
once.  The  Convention  rejected  the  proposal  by  a  large  majority, 
and  provided  instead  that  the  revenue  and  navigation  laws  of  the 
United  States  should  be  continued  in  effect,  but  no  duties  should 

"Candler,  op.  cit.,  II,  115-17,  322-24,  messages  of  Gov.  Brown,  Nov.  6,  1861, 
and  Nov.  18,  1862;  ibid.,  II,  324,  report  of  a  special  committee  of  the  Georgia 
House  of  Representatives. 

"Ibid.,  II,  115. 

"New  York  Herald,  Mar.  19,  1861. 

"Ibid.,  Mar.  19,  23,  1861. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXXI,  325.   Also  ibid.,  XXXI,  333-47. 


258      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [258 

be  collected  upon  imports  from  states  of  the  late  Federal  Union, 
and  no  tonnage  duties  should  be  collected  upon  vessels  from  the 
said  states.  Vessels  owned  to  one-third  part  by  citizens  of  South 
Carolina  or  of  other  slaveholding  states  might  be  registered  as 
South  Carolina  vessels.17  The  action  upon  the  tariff  was  de- 
termined by  a  number  of  considerations.  Revenue  was  needed. 
The  members  of  the  Convention  were  divided  upon  the  relative 
merits  of  direct  taxation  and  a  tariff  for  revenue  only.  The  ma- 
jority was  not  ready  to  risk  a  clash  with  the  Federal  government 
by  attempting  to  collect  duties  upon  goods  from  other  states  or 
by  admitting  foreign  goods  free  of  duty.  The  Georgia  Convention 
adopted  an  ordinance  similar  to  that  of  South  Carolina  by  a  small 
majority,  the  minority  wishing  to  allow  the  duties  to  be  paid  into 
the  Federal  treasury.18  In  other  seceding  states  similar  action 
was  taken.19 

The  states  in  the  Mississippi  valley  were  much  concerned  about 
the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  river.  They  wished  to  continue 
their  trade  with  the  West,  and  they  did  not  wish  to  antagonize 
states  of  the  upper  valley.  Senator  Slidell,  of  Louisiana,  while  yet 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  promised  free  navigation  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi.20 An  ordinance  recognizing  the  right  of  the  free  naviga- 
tion of  the  Mississippi  by  all  friendly  nations  bordering  upon  it 
was  reported  to  the  Louisiana  Convention  along  with  the  ordin- 
ance of  secession,  and  was  adopted  unanimously.21  The  Missis- 
sippi Convention  adopted  a  resolution  similar  to  the  Louisiana 
ordinance,  also  by  a  unanimous  vote.22  The  Alabama  Convention 

"Proceedings  in  Journal  of  the  Convention  of  South  Carolina,  45-47,  67, 
83-88,  93-105;  debate  in  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  21,  25,  1860;  National  Intelli- 
gencer, Dec.  25. 

"Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Georgia,  1861,  pp.  57,  83,  92,  123.  The  vote 
was  130-119. 

"Ordinances  and  Constitution  of  the  State  of  Alabama  .  .  .  1861,  p.  18, 
ordinance  of  Jan.  23,  1861;  Journal  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Convention  of  the 
People  of  Florida  .  .  .  1861,  p.  99;  ordinance  of  Jan.  15,  Official  Journal  .  .  . 
of  the  Convention  .  .  .  of  Louisiana,  105,  106,  235,  ordinances  of  Jan.  29.  Missis- 
sippi, having  no  seaports,  took  no  action.  The  Texas  Convention  took  no  action 
because  it  was  expected  that  the  Southern  Convention  at  Montgomery  would 
take  the  matter  in  hand  in  a  few  days. 

*"Cong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  137,  720. 

"Official  Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Louisiana,  10,  18,  235. 

"Journal  of  the  State  Convention  [of  Mississippi],  24,  68. 


259]     EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  CONFEDERATE  STATES      259 

also  declared  that  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  should  not 
be  restricted.23 

It  was  not  an  easy  matter  for  the  Provisional  government  of 
the  Confederacy  to  fix  upon  a  tariff  and  navigation  policy.  The 
commercial  interests  of  the  seceded  states  desired  and  expected 
free  trade  or  an  approximation  thereto.  Free  trade,  it  was  thought, 
would  mean  direct  trade.24  It  would  tend,  too,  to  conciliate  the 
North  and  make  peaceful  separation  more  possible.  As  early 
as  December  5,  1860,  Senator  Iverson  told  the  United  States 
Senate  that,  if  the  Northern  states  would  let  the  South  go  in 
peace,  the  new  confederacy  would  treat  them  as  a  favored  nation 
in  the  making  of  commercial  treaties.25  Free  trade  would  make 
easier  the  settlement  of  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi.  It 
might  also  win  sympathy  for  the  Southern  cause  in  England  and 
France.26  On  the  other  hand  the  new  government  must  be  sup- 
ported; the  people  were  accustomed  to  indirect  taxes,  and  the 
leaders  hesitated  to  test  their  patriotism  at  the  very  start  by  a 
resort  to  direct  taxation.27  There  were  those  who  wanted  a  ju- 
dicious tariff,  because  it  would  encourage  manufactures.  There 
were  localities  with  interests  to  protect;  Louisiana  sugar  interests 
demanded  a  tariff.  Others  wished  to  take  advantage  of  the  op- 
portunity afforded  to  render  the  South  independent  of  the  North. 
When,  in  the  Alabama  Convention,  W.  R.  Smith  proposed  that  the 
South  should  continue  free  trade  with  states  of  the  old  Union, 
Yancey  said  that  would  reconstruct  the  "most  material  elements 
of  the  late  Union  into  a  Commercial  Union."28  The  attitude  of  the 
border  states  was  very  important.  One  of  the  influences  under- 
stood to  be  deterring  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and 
other  border  states  from  secession  was  the  fear  that  manufactur- 

2'Smith,  History  and  Debates  of  the  Convention  of  the  People  of  Alabama, 
1861,  p.  184  f.;  Ordinances  and  Constitution  of  the  State  of  Alabama,  33,  resolu- 
tion of  Jan.  25. 

"William  Porcher  Miles  to  Howell  Cobb,  Jan,  14,  1861,  G.  B.  Lamar  to 
Cobb,  Mar.  25.  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence;  National  Intelligencer, 
Dec.  20,  quoting  the  Charleston  Mercury. 

KCong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  12. 

*°G.  B.  Lamar  to  Howell  Cobb,  Feb.  9,  22,  Mar.  9,  25,  1861,  Toombs, 
Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence;  DeBozu's  Review,  XXX,  93  ff. 

"Junius  Hillyer  to  Howell  Cobb,  Jan.  30,  Feb.  9,  1861,  Toombs,  Stephens, 
Cobb  Correspondence. 

MSmith,  History  and  Debates  of  the  Convention  of  Alabama,  1861,  p.  188. 


260     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1861    [260 

ing,  mining,  and  other  interests  there  would  be  sacrificed  to  the 
free  trade  principles  of  the  cotton  states,  and  the  people  subjected 
to  direct  taxation.29 

In  various  quarters  duties  upon  exports  were  suggested.  In  his 
message  of  November  7,  1860,  Governor  Brown,  of  Georgia,  sug- 
gested that  the  power  to  levy  an  export  duty  upon  cotton  would 
be  a  powerful  support  to  the  diplomacy  of  a  Southern  confed- 
eracy.30 It  would  permit  the  Confederacy  to  raise  ample  revenue, 
and  at  the  same  time  make  her  import  duties  so  much  lower  than 
those  of  the  North  that  either  direct  trade  would  be  established, 
or  the  North  would  have  to  adopt  free  trade.31  The  possibilities 
of  export  duties  as  a  protection  to  home  industries  were  not  over- 
looked. The  chief  consideration,  however,  in  favor  of  export 
duties  was  the  need  of  revenue.  A  small  tax  on  cotton,  for 
example,  could  be  easily  collected  and  would  net  a  considerable 
sum.32  In  the  border  states  the  suggestion  of  export  duties  was 
welcomed  because  it  relieved  apprehension  of  direct  taxation.83 

The  committee  of  the  Montgomery  Convention  on  a  provision- 
al constitution  for  the  Confederate  States  reported  a  clause  which 
forbade  protective  tariffs  and  prohibited  duties  in  excess  of  15  per 
cent,  with  the  proviso  that  such  import  and  export  dudes  might  be 
imposed  "as  may  be  expedient  to  induce  friendly  political  rela- 
tions" with  nations  pursuing  unfriendly  policies.  The  clause  was 
rejected.34  The  Provisional  Constitution  as  adopted  contained  a 
clause  almost  identical  with  the  corresponding  clause  of  the 
United  States  Constitution.35  Export  duties,  however,  were  not 
prohibited.  On  February  9,  1861,  the  Provisional  Congress  passed 

"Junius  Hillyer  to  Howell  Cobb,  Jan.  30,  Feb.  9,  1861,  Toombs,  Stephens 
Cobb  Correspondence;  DeBow's  Review,  XXX,  165;  National  Intelligencer,  Nov. 
27,  1860. 

s°Candler,  Confederate  Records  of  the  State  of  Georgia,  I,  52.  Also  Howell 
Cobb  in  the  Provisional  Congress,  Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  157;  DeBow's  Review, 
XXX,  564.  See  also  Correspondence  of  T.  R.  R.  Cobb  (So.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Publ, 
XI),  letter  to  his  wife,  Feb.  21,  1861. 

"DeBow's  Review,  XXX,  551-67. 

*lbid.,  XXX,  565;  Charleston  Courier,  Mar.  25,  1861. 

"Richmond  Correspondence,  New  York  Herald,  Feb.  3,  1861. 

"Senate  Documents,  58  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  No.  234,  Vol.  I,  Journal  of  the 
Provisional  Congress  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America,  p.  35. 

"Constitution  for  the  Provisional  Government  of  the  Confederate  States  of 
America,  Art.  I,  6,  I. 


26l]     EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  CONFEDERATE  STATES      26l 

a  bill  continuing  United  States  laws  in  force  November  i,  1860, 
which  were  not  inconsistent  with  the  Provisional  Constitution;36 
thus  the  United  States  tariff  and  navigation  laws  were  adopted. 
February  18,  Congress  modified  the  tariff  law  to  admit  free  of 
duty  breadstuff's,  provisions,  agricultural  products,  living  animals, 
and  munitions.37  By  an  act  of  February  28,  an  export  tax  of  one- 
eighth  cent  a  pound  was  levied  on  cotton.38  On  February  22, 
Congress  unanimously  passed  a  law  establishing  the  free  naviga- 
tion of  the  Mississippi.39  By  an  act  of  February  26,  the  United 
States  navigation  laws  were  virtually  repealed,  and  the  coastwise 
commerce  of  the  Confederate  states  thrown  open  to  the  ships  of 
all  nations.40  Another  act,  of  March  15,  authorized  the  transit  of 
foreign  merchandise  through  the  Confederate  States  to  points 
beyond  their  borders  free  of  duties.41  Regulations  were  at  once 
made  to  put  this  act  into  effect.42  Thus  the  Confederate  govern- 
ment slowly  took  steps  in  the  general  direction  of  free  trade. 

Meanwhile,  the  Provisional  government  was  engaged  in  draft- 
ing a  permanent  constitution  for  the  Confederacy.  On  March  4 
the  clause  relating  to  taxes  was  taken  up.  As  reported  from  com- 
mittee, it  was  almost  identical  with  the  corresponding  clause  of 
the  United  States  Constitution.  R.  B.  Rhett  moved  to  add  the 
proviso:  "but  no  bounties  shall  be  granted  from  the  treasury;  nor 
shall  any  duties  or  taxes  on  importations  from  foreign  nations  be 
laid  to  promote  or  foster  any  branch  of  industry."  This  amend- 
ment was  adopted.  Georgia,  which  had  a  small  manufacturing  in- 
terest, and  Louisiana,  which  had  the  sugar  industry  to  protect, 
voting  in  the  negative.43  The  following  day  a  clause  was  adopted 
which  gave  congress  the  power  by  a  two-thirds  majority  to  lay 
duties  on  exports.44  Upon  motion  of  Rhett,  congress  was  denied 

"Statutes  at  Large  of  the  Provisional  Government  of  the  Confederate  States 
of  America,  p.  27. 

'"Ibid.,  28. 

"Ibid.,  42,  Sect.  5. 

""Approved,  Feb.  25,  ibid.,  36;  Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  157. 

"Statutes  at  Large  of  the  Provisional  Government  of  the  Confederate  States 
of  America,  38. 

"Ibid.,  70. 

42New  York  Herald,  Mar.  19,  21;  President  Davis's  Message  of  April  29, 
1861,  Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  131,  618. 

"Journal  of  the  Provisional  Congress,  853,  864,  865. 

"Ibid.,  869.  Art.  I,  9,  6. 


262      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [262 

power  to  appropriate  money  in  aid  of  internal  improvements  in- 
tended to  facilitate  commerce.  The  Texas  delegation  voted  against 
this  provision,  and  the  Louisiana  delegation  was  divided.45  Texas 
was  especially  interested  in  the  Pacific  railroad,  and  Louisiana  in 
the  improvement  of  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi.  The  Per- 
manent Constitution  was  hailed  generally  in  the  South  as  the  end 
of  protectionism  and  special  privilege  of  all  kinds.  Vice-President 
Stephens  so  described  it.*6  The  Charleston  Mercury  termed  it, 
"the  first  acknowledgment  in  the  fundamental  law  of  any  people, 
of  the  principle  of  just  and  equal  taxation."  It  must  be  rightfully 
administered,  however.47  DeBow's  Review,  said,  "The  protective 
system  receives  its  quietus  thus:  . .  ,"48  South  Carolina  free  traders, 
however,  feared  the  new  Constitution  left  a  loophole  for  protec- 
tion, because  it  placed  no  maximum  limit  upon  the  duties  congress 
might  impose.  This  was  one  of  the  grounds  upon  which  a  number 
in  the  South  Carolina  Convention  opposed  ratification  of  the 
Constitution;49  the  Convention,  however,  ratified  the  Constitu- 
tion by  a  large  majority.  The  provision  giving  congress  the  power 
to  lay  duties  on  exports  likewise  did  not  give  universal  satisfac- 
tion.30 In  the  North,  too,  a  few  were  inclined  to  charge  that  the 
South  had  abandoned  free  trade  principles.  The  South  had 
claimed  separate  nationality,  said  one,  "and  it  has  proclaimed,  not 
free  trade,  but  a  system  of  virtual,  though  covert,  protection  .  .  . 
What  shall  we  say  of  their  Chinese  duty  upon  exports?"51 

The  early  action  of  the  Provisional  Congress  in  continuing  in 
force  the  United  States  tariff  law,  that  is,  the  Tariff  of  1857,  was 
not  generally  satisfactory.  The  Augusta  Chronicle,  for  example, 
thought  Congress  had  done  well  in  ignoring  the  fallacy  of  free 
trade  (Augusta  was  a  manufacturing  town);52  and  the  action 
seemed  to  have  a  good  effect  in  the  border  states.53  But  many 

"Journal  of  the  Provisional  Congress,  892.  The  provision  made  certain  ex- 
ceptions, Art.  I,  9,  6. 

**"Corner  stone"  speech.   Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  pp.  44-45. 

**Mar.  5,  1861,  quoted  in  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  19. 

"XXX,  484- 

*  Journal  of  the  Convention  of  South  Carolina,  207,  214,  253-60. 

"Ibid.,  253;  DeBow's  Review,  XXXI,  206,  305-13;  G.  B.  Lamar  to  Howell 
Cobb,  Feb.  9,  1861,  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Correspondence. 

"Powell,  Notes  on  "Southern  Wealth  and  Northern  Profits,"  29. 

"Quoted  in  New  York  Times,  Feb.  16. 

"Report  of  H.  P.  Bell,  Georgia  commissioner  to  Tennessee,  Journal  of  the 
Convention  of  Georgia,  369. 


263]     EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  CONFEDERATE  STATES      263 

feared  that  it  was  not  calculated  to  promote  direct  trade  or  win 
friends  in  Great  Britain  and  France  or  conciliate  the  North  and 
West.  March  2  Mr.  Harris,  of  Mississippi,  moved  to  instruct  the 
Committee  on  Finance  of  the  Provisional  Congress  to  enter  upon 
a  revision  of  the  tariff  with  a  view  to  a  reduction  of  the  duties  and 
an  enlargement  of  the  free  list.  In  explanation  he  said  that  when 
the  tariff  had  been  adopted,  upon  his  motion  an  early  revision  had 
been  promised  "with  a  view  to  the  future  adoption  of  that  policy 
which  was  to  invite  the  great  Northwest  to  other  and  cheaper 
markets  than  those  to  be  found  in  Boston  and  New  York,  and 
also  enable  the  merchants  of  the  Confederate  States  to  obtain  their 
goods  at  lower  rates  than  those  purchased  by  the  merchants  of 
the  United  States,  and  consequently  be  enabled  to  undersell  the 
latter.  This  policy  would  throw  the  evils  of  illicit  traffic  upon  the 
shoulders  of  the  Northern  States,  and  put  the  crown  of  commercial 
supremacy  upon  the  Confederate  States — in  other  words,  achieve 
one  of  the  great  positive  advantages  arising  from  our  separation 
from  the  unfriendly  States  of  North  America — to  wit:  commercial 
independence."84  William  Porcher  Miles,  of  Charleston,  favored 
the  resolution.  He  had  always  supposed  the  South  was  desirous 
of  approaching  as  near  free  trade  as  possible.  Judge  Withers, 
of  South  Carolina,  wanted  to  hold  out  free  trade  to  Europe  as  an 
inducement  to  recognition  of  the  South.  A  resolution  was  intro- 
duced in  the  Louisiana  Convention,  March  26,  declaring  for  entire 
free  trade  with  the  Western  states,  both  slave  and  free.65  On  May 
17  a  new  tariff  bill  was  passed  in  Congress  over  considerable  op- 
position, chiefly  from  those  who  desired  a  measure  calculated  to 
produce  more  revenue.56  The  duties  averaged  about  5  per  cent 
lower  than  those  of  the  Tariff  of  1857.  Most  manufactured  goods 
bore  duties  of  15  per  cent;  most  important  raw  materials  bore 
duties  of  10  per  cent;  the  free  list  included  provisions,  breadstuffs, 
living  animals,  munitions  and  munitions  materials,  and  ships.  The 
bill  was  to  go  into  effect  August  31."  Plainly  the  measure  repre- 

w Journal  of  the  Provisional  Congress,  97;  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  9,  debate 
on  Harris's  motion. 

" 'Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  431;  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  27. 

50 Journal  of  the  Provisional  Congress,  242,  act  approved  May  21. 

"Statutes  at  Large  of  the  Provisional  Government,  127-35.  The  act  was 
amended  in  minor  particulars  by  act  of  Aug.  3.  Ibid.,  171. 


264     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [264 

sented  a  compromise  between  the  various  views  of  a  proper  tariff 
policy. 

Meanwhile  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  had  taken  action 
highly  satisfactory  to  the  Confederacy  when  it  enacted  the 
Morrill  tariff,  approved  March  2,  1861.  The  bill  fixed  mod- 
erately high  duties  to  become  effective  April  i.  The  opposi- 
tion press  of  the  North  represented  the  Morrill  act  as  a 
stupendous  piece  of  folly  which  would  result  in  direct  trade 
for  the  South,  make  it  difficult  to  retain  the  border  states  in 
the  Union,  and  alienate  the  sympathies  of  Great  Britain  and 
France.88  The  New  York  Times,  a  Republican  paper,  ob- 
posed  it.  The  London  Times  represented  it  as  a  blunder  on  the 
part  of  the  North.59  In  the  South  it  was  hoped  the  difference  in 
the  two  tariffs  would  promote  direct  trade.  Southern  journals  and 
representatives  seized  the  opportunity  afforded  by  the  Morrill 
bill  to  play  up,  for  the  benefit  of  foreign  opinion,  the  tariff  as  a 
cause  of  secession,  and  to  present  to  foreign  nations  the  view  that 
it  was  to  their  interests  to  recognize  the  independence  of  a  people 
which  would  continue  to  maintain  as  nearly  free  trade  as  its 
necessities  would  allow.60  President  Davis  and  Vice-President 
Stephens  both  announced  that  as  near  free  trade  as  possible  would 
be  the  policy  of  the  government.61  Secretary  of  State  Toombs  in- 
structed Yancey,  Rost,  and  Mann,  commissioners  to  Europe,  to 
point  out  the  differing  views  of  the  North  and  South  upon  com- 
mercial policy,  avoid  discussion  of  slavery,  and  to  assure  European 
governments  that  the  policy  of  the  Confederacy  would  be  an  ap- 
proximation of  free  trade.62  Later  in  the  year,  Secretary  Hunter 
in  his  instructions  to  J.  M.  Mason  stated  very  forcibly  the  interest 
the  British  people  had  in  the  establishment  of  a  free  trade  republic 
in  America.  He  neglected,  however,  to  emphasize  differences  over 

MNew  York  Herald,  Feb.  i,  8,  18,  27,  28,  Mar.  4,  15,  19,  23,  29;  Carpen- 
ter, Logic  of  History,  146  f.,  quoting  a  number  of  Northern  papers.  There  was 
little  debate  upon  the  tariff  in  Congress. 

"Quoted  in  Carpenter,  op.  cit.,  147;  to  same  effect  in  New  York  Herald, 
Mar.  23,  29,  Apr.  6. 

mDeBow's.  Review,  XXXI,  69-77;  Savannah  Republican,  May  22,  in  Moore, 
Rebellion  Record,  I,  Diary  p.  5. 

w 'Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  613;  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  p.  48. 

"Mar.  16,  1861.    Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Confederacy,  II, 


265]     EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  CONFEDERATE  STATES      265 

commercial  policy  as  a  cause  of  separation;  the  Southern  states 
had  seceded  when  the  government  of  the  Union  had  threatened 
to  "destroy  their  social  system."63  Yancey,  Rost,  and  Mann  pre- 
sented with  force  and  effect  the  advantages  to  European  nations 
of  an  independent  Southern  confederacy  dedicated  to  free  trade.64 

From  the  first  there  was  a  group  in  the  Confederacy  which 
wanted  to  make  a  bold  bid  for  the  support  of  Great  Britain  and 
France  by  granting  them  valuable  commercial  advantages  for  a 
long  period  of  years,  and  this  group  was  strengthened  by  the  out- 
break of  the  war.  President  Davis,  however,  believed  the  proper 
Southern  policy  to  be  to  conciliate  the  North,  if  possible.  In  his 
inaugural  address  he  said:  "An  agricultural  people,  .  .  .  our  true 
policy  is  peace,  and  the  freest  trade  which  our  necessities  will 
permit  .  .  .  There  can  be  but  little  rivalry  between  ours  and  any 
manufacturing  or  navigating  community,  such  as  the  northeastern 
States  of  the  American  Union."65  Even  after  the  war  began  Presi- 
dent Davis  promised  the  North  treaties  of  amity  and  commerce 
if  it  would  abandon  coercion.66  He  relied  upon  their  dependence 
upon  the  South  for  cotton  to  secure  the  good  will,  even  aid,  of 
European  countries.  Though,  as  we  have  seen,  the  commissioners 
to  Great  Britain  and  France  had  been  instructed  to  represent  that 
approximate  free  trade  would  be  the  policy  of  the  Confederate 
government,  they  were  not  authorized  to  attempt  any  high 
diplomacy.67 

On  May  13,  1861,  R.  B.  Rhett,  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations,  offered  resolutions  in  Congress  advising  the 
negotiation  of  treaties  guaranteeing  a  low  maximum  of  duties  for 
a  long  period  of  years.  Mr.  Cobb  moved  to  amend  by  stipulating 
that  such  treaties  should  not  extend  beyond  five  years.  The 
amendment  was  adopted;  whereupon,  on  Mr.  Rhett's  motion  the 

63Sept.  23.  Richardson,  op.  cit.,  II,  84  ff. 

"Letters  to  Secretary  Toombs,  in  ibid.,  II,  34,  42,  60.  See  also  letter  to 
the  London  Times,  by  John  Lothrop  Motley,  in  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc. 
pp.  209-218;  Callahan,  Diplomatic  History  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  8l, 
109  ff. 

"Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  613. 

"Ibid.,  I,  619,  139- 

"Yancey,  Rost,  and  Mann  to  Secretary  of  State,  Toombs,  Aug.  7,  1861, 
asking  for  new  instructions,  Richardson,  op.  cit.,  II,  56-59;  DuBose,  Yancey, 
596. 


266     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [266 

whole  matter  was  laid  upon  the  table.68  Congress  acted  upon  the 
belief  that  the  war  would  be  short;  there  were  perhaps  still  hopes 
that  the  North  would  abandon  the  war  if  assured  that  the  Con- 
federacy would  not  adopt  a  hostile  commercial  policy.  The  neces- 
sities of  the  South  were  not  yet  felt  to  be  great;  the  Confederacy 
should  hold  herself  free  to  adopt  any  commercial  policy  she  might 
see  fit.  Twenty  years  of  free  trade  with  England  would  destroy 
the  manufactures  of  the  South.  Secretary  of  State  Toombs  seems 
to  have  agreed  with  Mr.  Rhett;  but  President  Davis  was  in  accord 
with  the  majority.69  The  representatives  in  Europe  were  given  no 
new  instructions.  As  the  year  wore  on  and  the  blockade  of 
Southern  ports  tightened,  the  Administration  showed  a  disposition 
to  rely  upon  a  shortage  of  cotton  for  the  factories  of  England  to 
bring  about  the  intervention  of  that  country.  The  exportation  of 
cotton  was  forbidden  except  through  Southern  ports,70  and 
Yancey,  Rost,  and  Mann  wrote  Earl  Russell  that,  "To  be  obtained 
it  must  be  sought  for  in  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  ports  of  those 
States."71 

From  time  to  time  through  1861  and  the  early  part  of  1862,  ef- 
forts were  made  in  Congress  to  admit  all  goods  free  of  duty  for  a 
limited  period  except  from  the  United  States.72  A  bill  to  that 
effect  passed  the  House  April  3,  1862,  by  a  large  majority  but  was 
not  acted  upon  in  the  Senate.73  A  convention  of  merchants  and 
planters  at  Macon  in  October,  1861,  had  unanimously  recom- 
mended the  suspension  of  all  duties  and  the  adoption  of  free  trade 
with  all  nations  at  peace  with  the  Confederacy;74  and  sentiment 
favorable  to  the  course  was  manifested  elsewhere.75  But  in  general 
public  opinion  supported  the  policy  of  the  government.  Confidence 
was  still  felt  in  the  "cotton  is  king"  argument.76  Those  who  wished 

M Journal  of  the  Provisional  Congress,  214,  253;  Charleston  Mercury,  June 
20,  quoted  in  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  II,  Diary  p.  13;  DuBose,  Yancey, 
598-602. 

"Ibid.,  600-602. 

'"Act  of  May  21,  Statutes  at  Large  o{  the  Provisional  Government,  152. 

"Richardson,  op.  cit.,  II,  70. 

""Journal  of  the  Provisional  Congress,  277,  290,  489,  547,  743,  820. 

"Schwab,  Confederate  States  of  America,  246. 

"Ibid.,  245- 

78Gov.  Brown,  of  Ga.  Candler,  Confederate  Records  of  Ga.,  II,  115;  De- 
Bow's  Review,  XXXI,  536  ff. 

"Ibid.,  XXXI,  400-404;  412  if. 


267]     EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  CONFEDERATE  STATES      267 

to  make  the  South  industrially  independent  of  the  North  were 
disposed,  1861,  to  look  upon  the  war  and  the  blockade  as  a  bless- 
ing in  disguise.  DeBow's  Review  reflected  this  disposition.  In 
July,  when  the  people  were  confident  of  an  early  peace,  DeBow 
wrote :  "Secession,  disunion,  will  avail  us  nothing  if  we  continue  to 

have  intercourse  with  the  North  and  to  trade  with  her there  is 

danger,  grave  danger,  that  in  making  peace  with  the  North  we 
shall  restore  the  old  Union  in  all  save  the  name."77  In  September, 
DeBow  wrote:  "The  blockade  will  make  us  very  independent  at 
the  South,  and  thank  God  for  it.  Every  branch  of  manufactures  is 
springing  up.  Our  people  need  but  this  spur."78  President  Davis 
gave  countenance  to  such  an  idea  in  his  message  of  November 
18,  1861:  "If  they  [people]  should  be  forced  to  forego  many  of 
the  luxuries  and  some  of  the  comforts  of  life,  they  will  at  least 
have  the  consolation  of  knowing  that  they  are  daily  becoming 
more  and  more  independent  of  the  rest  of  the  world."79  As  the  war 
progressed  the  sentiment  in  favor  of  restrictions  on  imports  and 
exports  grew.80  This  was  due  chiefly,  no  doubt,  to  a  desire  to 
coerce  foreign  governments  to  recognize  the  Confederacy  and  raise 
the  blockade;  but  in  part  it  was  the  manifestation  of  a  genuine 
protectionist  sentiment. 

The  early  tariff  and  navigation  policies  of  the  Confederacy,  then, 
were  determined  mainly  by  the  exigencies  of  the  political  situa- 
tion; but  there  are  sufficient  indications  that,  could  they  have 
been  worked  out  in  peace  and  independence,  they  would  have  been 
adopted  with  expectations  of  great  economic  benefits  to  result  there- 
from. As  to  what  the  proper  policies  were,  similar  divisions  would 
have  occurred  as  among  the  secessionists  per  se  before  secession. 
The  free  traders  would  have  won,  at  least  temporarily;  but  the 
sentiment  for  protective  measures  would  have  been  much  stronger 
than  the  previous  attitude  of  the  Southern  people  on  the  tariff  and 
navigation  policies  of  the  United  States  alone  would  have  led  one 
to  expect. 

When  the  cotton  states  seceded  there  was  considerable  discus- 
sion there  as  to  what  states  would  ultimately  join  the  Confederacy, 

"XXXI,  12.  See  also  XXXI,  396. 

^DeBow's  Review,  XXXI,  329,  518. 

™  Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  624 

This  subject  is  discussed  in  Schwab,  Confederate  States,  246-50. 


and  as  to  what  states  it  was  desirable  should  join.  There  was  by 
no  means  a  general  desire  that  all  the  slaveholding  states  be  in- 
cluded in  the  new  confederation  or  that  only  slaveholding  states 
be  admitted  to  it.  Consideration  of  other  things  than  the  best 
method  of  preserving  slave  institutions  affected  judgments  upon 
the  proper  limits  of  the  Confederacy. 

There  were  many  in  the  cotton  states  who  preferred  that  the 
border  states  remain  with  the  old  Union;  and  the  number  would 
have  been  greater  had  there  been  assurance  of  peaceful  secession.81 
Extreme  advocates  of  reopening  the  slave  trade,  such  as  L.  W. 
Spratt,  preferred  giving  up  the  border  states  to  abandoning  their 
favorite  project.82  Extreme  free  traders  and  some  of  those  who 
believed  the  best  chance  of  winning  independence  to  lie  in  enlist- 
ing the  aid  of  Great  Britain  and  France  by  commercial  alliances, 
feared  the  protectionist  propensities  of  the  people  of  the  border 
states.83  Others  believed  that  if  the  border  states  remained  in  the 
Union  their  influence  woujd  preserve  the  peace  between  the  Con- 
federacy and  the  Union.84  The  party  in  favor  of  leaving  out  the 
border  states  was  quite  strong  in  South  Carolina.  The  great 
majority  in  the  cotton  states,  however,  considered  it  highly  im- 
portant to  win  the  border  states.  In  addition  to  a  feeling  of  kin- 
ship and  homogeneity  of  interests,  there  was  a  conviction  on  their 
part  that  the  best  chance  for  peaceful  secession  lay  in  forming 
a  confederacy  so  strong  that  attack  by  the  North  would  be  hope- 
less of  success.85 

While  many  would  have  been  glad  to  restrict  the  Confederacy 
to  the  cotton  states  alone,  a  considerably  larger  number  would 
have  welcomed  accessions  from  the  free  states  of  the  upper  Mis- 

81  Jones,  Rebel  War  Clerk's  Diary,  I,  41;  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  20,  1860, 
Washington  Correspondence;  Mar.  10,  quoting  Charleston  Mercury,  Mar.  6;  ibid., 
Mar.  26. 

8JL.  W.  Spratt's  letter  to  Hon.  John  Perkins,  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  II, 
Doc.  pp.  357-65- 

"G.  B.  Lamar  to  Howell  Cobb,  Mar.  25,  1861,  Toombs,  Stephens,  Cobb  Cor- 
respondence. 

*4The  reference  is  to  permanent  policies.  A  greater  number  considered  it  good 
policy  for  the  border  states  to  remain  in  the  Union  and  hold  out  a  hope  of  re- 
construction for  the  purpose  of  warding  off  conflict  with  the  Federal  government 
until  the  Confederate  government  should  be  firmly  established. 

"Address  of  Fulton  Anderson,  Mississippi  commissioner,  before  the  Virginia 
Convention,  in  Journal  of  the  State  Convention  [of  Mississippi],  219. 


269]     EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  CONFEDERATE  STATES      269 

sissippi  valley.  The  desire  to  strengthen  the  Confederacy  against 
its  enemies  lent  support  to  the  hope  of  Western  accessions,  as  did 
the  wish  to  continue  commercial  relations  with  the  Northwest 
without  the  obstacles  of  customs  lines.  The  commerce  between 
the  West  and  South,  it  may  be  remarked  again,  was  not  considered 
indicative  of  "colonial  vassalage"  as  was  that  between  the  East  and 
South.  There  was  yet  surviving  also  an  aspiration  on  the  part  of 
Southern  seaports  to  supplant  Eastern  cities  in  exporting  and  im- 
porting for  the  upper  Mississippi  valley.  The  hope  that  Western 
states  would  sooner  or  later  find  it  to  their  advantage  to  join  the 
Confederacy  was  based  chiefly  upon  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the 
dependence  of  those  states  upon  the  Mississippi  river  as  an  outlet 
for  their  commerce  and  of  the  value  to  the  Western  people  of  their 
Southern  trade.  The  Southerners  did  not  feel  the  degree  of  hostil- 
ity toward  the  people  of  the  West  that  they  felt  for  the  Yankees; 
and  they  believed  the  people  of  the  West  less  strongly  opposed  to 
slavery  than  the  people  of  the  East.  The  opposition  to  seeking  or 
accepting,  should  they  be  offered,  accessions  from  the  West  was 
based  upon  the  conviction  that  it  had  been  and  should  be  the 
object  to  establish  a  slaveholding  confederacy;  there  should  be  no 
continuance  of  the  discord  between  slave  states  and  free  states. 
In  the  Georgia,  Mississippi,  and  Texas  conventions  ordinances 
were  introduced  which  looked  to  the  formation  of  a  confederacy 
of  slaveholding  states  only;  but  they  were  not  adopted.86  The 
Permanent  Constitution  of  the  Confederate  States  gave  congress 
the  power  to  admit  new  states  by  a  two-thirds  vote;  it  did  not 
prohibit  the  admission  of  free  states.87  Serious  objections  to  this 
clause  were  raised  in  the  South  Carolina  Convention.  President 
Davis,  in  his  inaugural  address,  called  attention  to  the  clause; 
but  he  thought  it  to  be  the  will  of  the  people  not  to  admit  states 
which  did  not  have  interests  homogeneous  with  theirs.  Vice-Pres- 
ident Stephens  expressed  a  similar  idea  in  his  "Corner  Stone" 
speech.88 

* 'Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Georgia,  68;  Journal  of  the  Secession  Conven- 
tion of  Texas,  1861,  p.  53;  Journal  of  the  State  Convention  [of  Mississippi],  33. 

""Stephens,  Toombs,  and  Davis  all  favored  leaving  the  door  open.  See  Hull, 
"The  Making  of  the  Confederate  Constitution,"  So.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Publications, 
IX,  284-85,  letter  of  T.  R.  R.  Cobb  to  his  wife,  Mar.  6,  1861;  290,  Cobb's  notes. 

'"The  Constitution  contained  a  "three-fifths  clause"  also.  When  the  matter 
was  being  considered  by  the  Provisional  Congress,  the  three-fifths  clause  was 


2/O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [2/0 

Without  doubt  the  opinion  was  quite  extensively  held  in  the 
border  states  and  in  the  North  at  the  time  of  the  secession  of  the 
cotton  states  that  a  chief  object  of  secession  was  to  reopen  the 
African  slave  trade.  The  opinion  was  perhaps  justified  by 
knowledge  of  the  agitation  for  renewal  during  the  years  1856-1859. 
There  are  strong  reasons,  however,  for  believing  that  the  im- 
portance of  a  desire  to  reopen  the  slave  trade  as  a  motive  of 
secession  was  considerably  exaggerated,  perhaps  purposely  so. 

The  discussion  of  reopening  the  slave  trade  of  a  few  years 
previous  had  made  very  clear  that  the  people  of  the  cotton  states 
were  badly  divided  upon  the  question.  Disunionists  had  tried, 
and  in  a  measure  had  succeeded,  to  silence  the  agitation  because 
they  found  that  it  weakened  the  disunion  movement.  The  discus- 
sion of  those  years  had  made  it  very  clear,  too,  that  the  border 
states  were  very  strongly  opposed  to  reopening  the  slave  trade. 
Disunionists  understood  also  that  the  sentiment  of  European  na- 
tions was  against  it.  Cogent  arguments  had  been  presented  before 
the  election  of  1860  to  show  the  futility  of  expecting  a  Southern 
confederacy  to  reopen  it.  The  prospect  of  reopening  the  trade 
was  not  held  out  to  the  electors  as  an  inducement  to  go  for  seces- 
sion during  the  brief  campaign  which  preceded  the  election  of 
delegates  to  the  secession  conventions.  On  the  contrary,  leaders 
early  gave  the  assurance  that  it  was  not  intended.89 

The  conventions  of  the  three  most  populous  cotton  states  adopt- 
ed resolutions  against  reopening  by  great  majorities  and  without 
hesitation.  The  Alabama  Convention  adopted,  with  only  three 
dissenting  votes,  a  resolution  declaring  the  people  of  Alabama  op- 
posed to  the  reopening  of  the  African  slave  trade  on  grounds  of 
"public  policy."  The  debate  made  it  very  clear  that  one  of  the 
chief  grounds  of  "public  policy"  was  a  desire  to  win  the  border 
states.90  The  Mississippi  Convention  by  a  vote  of  66  to  13  adopted 
a  resolution  declaring  it  not  to  be  the  purpose  or  policy  of  the 

dropped  upon  the  motion  of  Keith,  of  South  Carolina.  South  Carolina,  Florida, 
Mississippi,  and  Louisiana  voted  for  the  motion;  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Texas 
against.  Upon  motion  of  A.  H.  Stephens  the  vote  was  reconsidered,  and  Missis- 
sippi reversed  her  vote.  The  states  supporting  the  three-fifths  provision,  it  may 
be  said,  were  those  having  the  largest  white  population  in  proportion  to  black. 
See  Journal  of  the  Provisional  Congress,  861,  862,  889. 

""Southern  Literary  Messenger,  XXXII,  73. 

""Smith,  op.  cit.,  194-211;  228-265. 


271]     EARLY  ECONOMIC  POLICIES  OF  CONFEDERATE  STATES      2/1 

people  of  Mississippi  to  reopen  the  slave  trade.91  The  Georgia 
Convention  unanimously  adopted  an  ordinance  prohibiting  the 
African  slave  trade,  and  Georgia's  commissioners  to  other  states 
gave  the  assurance  that  the  people  of  their  state  had  no  design 
to  reopen  it.92  The  Louisiana  Convention,  however,  seemed  to  be 
in  favor  of  reopening  the  trade.  A  resolution  declaring  the  people 
of  Louisiana  opposed  to  reopening  was  rejected,  59  to  49;  and 
another  instructing  the  delegates  to  Montgomery  to  resist  any  and 
every  attempt  to  reopen  the  slave  trade  and  to  secure  a  constitu- 
tional provision  prohibiting  it,  was  rejected,  83  to  28.93  An  analysis 
of  these  votes  does  not  show  that  secessionists  voted  against  them 
in  greater  proportion  than  opponents  of  secession.  The  conven- 
tions of  South  Carolina,  Florida,  and  Texas  seem  to  have  taken 
no  action  on  the  matter. 

The  Provisional  Congress  put  a  prohibition  of  the  foreign  slave 
trade,  except  from  the  slaveholding  states  of  the  United  States, 
in  both  the  Provisional  and  the  Permanent  Constitution,  only 
the  South  Carolina  delegation  voted,  in  each  case,  for  a  substitute 
giving  Congress  the  power  to  prohibit  the  trade.94  There  was 
strong  opposition  in  South  Carolina  to  the  prohibition.  It  was 
strongly  criticized  in  the  South  Carolina  Convention.  The 
Charleston  Mercury  protested  against  the  interdiction.95  L.  W. 
Spratt  was  irreconcilable.  Much  of  the  South  Carolina  opposition 
to  the  prohibitory  clause,  however,  was  made  because  it  seemed  to 
admit  that  slavery  was  in  itself  an  evil;  many  of  those  opposed 
claimed  not  to  favor  the  actual  reopening  of  the  foreign  slave 
trade.96  The  Louisiana  Convention  refused  to  specifically  approve 
the  action  of  the  Provisional  Congress  relative  to  the  slave  trade,97 
although  it  ratified  both  the  Provisional  and  the  Permanent  Con- 
stitution of  the  Confederate  states.  Outside  these  two  states  there 

91 Journal  of  the  State  Convention  [of  Mississippi],  78,  84. 
^Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Georgia,  59,  363,  369. 
^Official  Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Louisiana,  28,  29. 
94 Journal  of  the  Provisional  Congress,  35,  868. 
""Mar.  15,  1861,  quoted  in  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  19. 
9'W.  H.  Russell,  letter  of  April  30,  1861,  on  "The  State  of  South  Carolina," 
in  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  p.  314  ff. 

* Official  Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Louisiana,  60,  61. 


272     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 8401861 

seems  to  have  been  little  dissatisfaction  with  the  action  of 
Congress.  Surely  if  a  desire  to  reopen  the  foreign  slave  trade  had 
been  a  chief  motive  of  secession,  a  constitutional  prohibition  of  it 
would  not  have  been  acquiesced  in  so  readily. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ECONOMIC  CONSIDERATIONS  AFFECTING  THE 
DECISION  OF  THE  BORDER  STATES 

In  the  border  states  after  the  election  of  Lincoln,  secessionists 
tried  to  show  that  the  election  of  Lincoln,  the  Personal  Liberty  laws 
of  Northern  States,  and  the  abolition  agitation  generally,  justified 
secession;  and  the  opponents  of  secession  refuted  their  arguments. 
There  were  those  who  wished  to  make  continuance  in  the  Union 
contingent  upon  securing  further  guarantees  for  slavery;  there 
were  others  who  thought  such  guarantees  unnecessary.  The  dis- 
cussion of  these  points  differed  in  no  essential  respect  from  the 
debate  of  similar  propositions  in  the  cotton  states.  Also,  secession- 
ists per  se  and  unconditional  Unionists  advanced  arguments  to 
show  that  secession  would  affect  advantageously  or  detrimentally 
the  material  interests  (other  than  slavery)  of  their  respective 
states.  But  it  was  understood  from  the  start  that  the  majority  of 
the  people  of  the  border  states  preferred  to  remain  in  the  Union 
if  it  could  be  saved  intact;  the  initiation  of  secession  must  come 
from  the  cotton  states.  Ardent  secessionists,  therefore,  devoted 
their  first  efforts  after  Lincoln's  election  to  persuading  the  cotton 
states  to  take  the  initiative.  Within  the  border  states  secessionists 
devoted  their  arguments  chiefly  to  prove  that  it  would  be  to  the 
interest  or  honor  of  their  respective  states  to  join  a  Southern 
confederacy  should  one  be  formed — or,  after  the  event,  that  it  was 
to  their  interest  or  honor  to  join  the  Confederacy. 

One  alleged  economic  advantage  of  the  secession  of  the  border 
states,  especially  those  east  of  the  mountains,  was  that  it  would 
give  an  impetus  to  manufacturing.  The  moderate  revenue  duties 
imposed  by  the  Confederate  government  would  amply  protect 
their  manufacturing  interests  against  Northern  competition.  In 
a  Southern  confederacy  the  Northern  slave  states  would  take  the 
place  of  New  England  in  manufacturing  for  the  states  farther 
south.  Thomas  L.  Clingman  described  the  manufactures  of  North 
Carolina,  and  said:  "The  result  of  only  ten  per  cent  duties  in  ex- 
cluding products  from  abroad,  would  give  life  and  impetus  to 
mechanical  and  manufacturing  industry  throughout  the  entire 
South."1  Senator  Hunter,  the  author  of  the  Tariff  of  1857, 

'Cong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  4. 

273 


2/4     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [274 

promised  the  border  states,  especially  Virginia,  that  in  a  Southern 
confederacy  they  would  take  the  place  of  New  England  and  other 
non-slaveholding  states  in  manufacturing  for  the  South.  "Under 
the  incidental  protection  afforded  by  a  tariff,  laid  without  other 
views  than  those  for  revenue  purposes,  there  would  be  an  un- 
exampled development  of  her  vast  capacity  for  mining,  manu- 
facturing, agricultural  and  commercial  production."2  Randolph 
Tucker,  Attorney  General  of  Virginia,  advanced  a  similar  argu- 
ment.3 The  Georgia  commissioners  to  Maryland,  Delaware,  and 
North  Carolina  urged  in  behalf  of  secession  that  the  cotton  states 
were  agricultural,  and  the  states  named  could  manufacture  foi 
them;  Said  Mr.  Hall,  commissioner  to  North  Carolina:  "All 
your  material  interests  must  be  promoted  by  your  speedy  union 
with  us  in  the  new  government.  The  princely  treasures  which  have 
been  hitherto  lavished  with  a  generous  hand  upon  ungrateful  New 
England,  will  be  poured  into  your  lap."* 

In  the  border  states  the  free  trade  proclivities  of  the  people  of 
the  cotton  states  were  feared,  and  Unionists  played  upon  this  fear. 
They  showed  how  free  trade  would  injure  manufacturing  interests 
in  the  South,  and  how  the  tariff  would  be  an  apple  of  discord  in 
a  new  confederacy  as  it  had  been  in  the  old.  Sherrard  Clemens, 
of  western  Virginia,  said:  "It  would  be  for  the  interest  of  the  coast 
States  to  have  free  trade  in  manufactured  goods;  but  how  would 
that  operate  on  the  mechanical  and  manufacturing  industry  of 
Missouri,  Kentucky,  Virginia,  Maryland  and  Delaware?"5  Union- 
ists also  showed  that  free  trade  would  mean  direct  taxation.  The 
Confederate  Congress  took  cognizance  of  these  speculations  in 
border  states  when  framing  their  early  tariff  legislation  and  the 
Provisional  and  the  Permanent  Constitution.6  Their  action  was 
not  entirely  reassuring,  however,  since  it  included  placing  a  pro- 

JLetter  on  the  Crisis,  Nov.  24,  1860,  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  6;  De Bow's  Re- 
view, XXX,  115. 

"In  article,  "The  Great  Issue:  Our  Relation  to  It,"  So.  Lit.  Mes.,  XXXII,  187. 

4 Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Georgia,  325,  330,  364. 

'Speech  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  Jan.  22,  1861,  in  Moore,  Rebellion 
Record,  I,  Doc.  p.  25.  See  also  Kennedy,  The  Border  States,  their  Power  and 
Duty,  23. 

"H.  P.  Bell,  Georgia  Commissioner  to  Tennessee,  reported  that  the  adoption 
of  the  policy  of  raising  revenue  by  duties  on  imports  had  strengthened  the  seces- 
sion movement  in  that  state.  Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Georgia,  369. 


275]  THE  DECISION  OF  THE  BORDER  STATES  2/5 

hibition  of  protective  tariffs  in  the  Permanent  Constitution.  John 
P.  Kennedy,  of  Maryland,  referred  to  the  belief  of  some  that  dis- 
criminatory duties  would  be  laid  on  Northern  goods  with  a  view  to 
the  establishment  of  large  manufacturing  interests  in  the  South. 
The  Constitution,  he  said,  had  already  put  a  veto  upon  protec- 
tion. Once  peace  should  be  established,  the  South  would  become 
friends  of  the  North,  and  would  revert  to  free  trade.  Northern 
manufacturers  could  compete  with  the  world  in  free  trade,  but 
Maryland's  could  not.7 

Much  was  said  of  the  commercial  advantages  which  would 
accrue  to  cities  of  border  states,  particularly  Norfolk,  Richmond, 
and  Baltimore,  from  their  inclusion  in  a  Southern  confederacy. 
North  Carolina  had  no  seaport  with  prospects  of  becoming  a  New 
York  under  the  stimulus  of  free  trade  and  direct  trade;  it  was  un- 
derstood that  the  trade  of  the  old  North  State  would  have  to  con- 
tribute to  the  upbuilding  of  Charleston,  Richmond,  and  Norfolk.8 
In  Virginia,  however,  the  commercial  benefits  of  disunion  were 
well  canvassed.  They  were  being  discussed  at  Norfolk  and  Rich- 
mond shortly  after  Lincoln's  election.9  In  the  Union,  said  Tucker, 
Norfolk  and  Richmond  would  still  be  dependencies  of  New  York. 
"With  the  command  of  the  Southern  trade,  with  her  extended 
Southern  connections,  with  her  commercial  facilities,  Virginia 
would  be  the  great  commercial,  manufacturing,  and  navigation 
State  of  the  South.  Her  bottoms  would  replace  those  of  New  Eng- 
land— her  merchants  and  factors  those  of  New  York — her  factories 
those  of  the  free  States."10  The  efforts  being  made  in  Virginia  to 
develop  an  extensive  foreign  trade  by  building  railroads  and  canals 
and  making  arrangements  in  Europe,  were  represented  as  "utterly 
vain  so  long  as  our  federal  system  continues."11  Visions  of  com- 
mercial grandeur  in  a  Southern  confederacy  explain  in  a  measure 
the  sympathy  with  secession  manifested  in  Baltimore.  Opponents 
of  secession,  however,  were  able  to  show  the  baselessness  of  these 

"'An  Appeal  to  Maryland,"  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  pp.  368-74. 
See  also  Journal  and  Proceedings  of  the  Missouri  Convention,  Journal,  35,  report 
of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

"Clingman  in  the  Senate,  Cong.  Globe,  37  Cong.,  Exec.  Sess.  of  Sen.,  1476. 

"Norfolk  and  Richmond  Correspondence,  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  28,  Dec. 
22,  1860. 

10J.  Randolph  Tucker  in  article  cited  above. 

"Willoughby  Newton,  National  Intelligencer,  Nov.  24,  1860. 


276     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [276 

expectations.  Even  should  Southern  independence  change  the 
course  of  Southern  trade,  which  was  highly  problematical,  what 
had  Baltimore  to  hope  from  the  change?  they  asked.  "Will  she 
import  for  the  South,  from  the  head  of  the  Chesapeake,  whilst 
Norfolk  lies  on  the  margin  of  the  sea  at  its  mouth  .  .  .  ?"12  Even 
merchants  of  St.  Louis  were  led  to  believe  that,  somehow,  separa- 
tion from  the  North  would  be  conducive  to  her  prosperity  and 
make  her  the  metropolis  of  the  valley.13 

But  it  was  generally  recognized  that  secession  offered  few  or  no 
positive  advantages  to  the  western  border  states.  "Disunion  on 
the  slave  line,"  said  one,  "carries  such  obvious  and  inevitable 
destructive  results  to  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri,  that 
no  Utopian  projector  of  a  Southern  Confederacy  has  ever  yet  had 
the  ingenuity  to  suggest  even  the  plausible  semblance  of  any 
compensating  benefit  to  those  three  States."14  As  far  as  material 
interests  other  than  slavery  were  concerned,  the  choice,  in  case  of 
a  disruption  of  the  Union,  between  going  with  the  South  and 
remaining  with  the  North  was  a  choice  between  two  evils.  And  in 
each  of  the  border  states  the  decision  was  affected  more  powerfully 
by  considerations  of  which  alternative  would  cause  less  disturbance 
and  injury  to  established  relations  of  trade  and  intercourse  than 
it  was  by  expectations  of  positive  advantages  to  result  from  join- 
ing a  Southern  confederacy. 

North  Carolina  was  very  slow  to  secede.  Her  people  were  con- 
servative. (The  state  was  often  referred  to  as  the  Rip  Van  Winkle 
of  the  South.)  Leaders  of  the  secession  movement  had  perfect 
confidence,  however,  that  North  Carolina  would  go  out  if  Virginia 
did  so;  for,  aside  from  questions  of  defense,  the  chief  routes  of 
trade  and  travel  lay  across  the  boundaries  of  Virginia  and  South 
Carolina.  That  portion  of  Virginia  which  lay  between  the  moun- 
tains and  the  Chesapeake  had  important  commercial  connections 
with  both  the  North  and  the  South,  but  the  routes  of  trade  upon 
which  Virginia  cities  depended  for  their  prosperity  were  to  the 
South  and  Southwest.  The  most  important  railroad,  the  Virginia 

MJohn  P.  Kennedy,  "An  Appeal  to  Maryland,"  cited  in  note  7. 

"Journal  and  Proceedings  of  the  Missouri  Convention,  Proceedings,  p.  86; 
New  York  Herald,  Dec.  17,  1860,  remarks  of  Mr.  Grow  in  a  meeting  of  the 
St.  Louis  Chamber  of  Commerce. 

"South  Carolina,  Disunion,  and  a  Mississippi  Valley  Confederacy,  p.  6. 


277]  THE  DECISION  OF  THE  BORDER  STATES  277 

and  Tennessee,  ran  via  the  southwest  corner  of  the  state  in  the 
direction  of  Chattanooga,  whence  connection  was  had  with  Nash- 
ville, Memphis,  and  New  Orleans.  Another  important  road,  the 
Petersburg  and  Weldon,  ran  south,  and  conected  with  North  and 
South  Carolina  roads.  The  Shenandoah  valley,  however,  and 
much  of  Northern  Virginia  had  been  made  commercially  tributary 
to  Baltimore. 

The  commercial  interests  of  Baltimore  were  an  important 
factor  in  the  decision  of  Maryland.  Baltimore  was  the  commercial 
center  for  central  Maryland,  much  of  northern  Virginia,  and  to  a 
limited  extent  for  the  Susquehanna  valley,  in  Pennsylvania.  But 
the  most  important  connection  was  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  rail- 
road, which  ran  up  the  Potomac  river  to  Cumberland  and  thence 
to  Wheeling,  with  a  branch  across  western  Virginia  to  Parkers- 
burg.  At  Wheeling  and  Parkersburg  connections  were  made  with 
the  network  of  railroads  in  the  old  Northwest.  The  possession  of 
this  western  connection  promoted  Union  sentiment  in  Baltimore, 
especially  because  western  Maryland  and  northwestern  Virginia 
showed  strong  Union  tendencies.  John  P.  Kennedy,  of  Maryland, 
referred  to  the  unfriendliness  of  eastern  Virginia  to  Maryland's 
internal  improvement  policy  and  the  friendliness  of  the  western 
counties.  "The  true  friends  and  allies  of  our  policy  are  in  the 
West.  At  this  moment  that  region  is  making  its  protest  against 
secession.  It  is  a  matter  of  deepest  moment  that  we  should  wisely 
appreciate  this  fact."15 

One  explanation  of  the  strong  union  sentiment  of  western  Vir- 
ginia was  the  identity  of  economic  interests  with  neighboring  por- 
tions of  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  Kentucky,  and  Maryland  rather  than 
with  eastern  Virginia.  The  trade  of  western  Virginia  went  not 
across  the  mountains  to  Richmond  and  Norfolk  but  to  Cincinnati, 
Pittsburgh,  and  other  cities  on  the  Ohio  river,  and  by  the  Bal- 
timore and  Ohio  railroad  to  Baltimore.  Governor  Pierpont  said 
secession  would  be  fatal  to  the  material  interests  of  West  Virginia. 
"Secession  and  annexation  to  the  South  would  cut  off  every  outlet 
for  our  productions."16  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  failure  to  com- 
plete the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  railroad  and  the  James  River  and 

"Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  p.  373. 

"Ibid.,  II,  Doc.  p.  158.   Also  Virginia  Senate  Journal  and  Documents,  Extra 
Session,  1861,  p.  20,  message  of  Governor  Letcher. 


278      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [278 

Kanawha  canal  before  the  Civil  War  was  a  deciding  factor  in  the 
division  of  Virginia  on  the  secession  issue.17  A  desire  to  unify  the 
state  had  been  one  of  the  motives  of  those  who  zealously  sup- 
ported these  projects.  It  is  possible,  too,  that,  could  the 
Chesapeake  and  Ohio  railroad  have  been  completed  and  success- 
fully operated  before  1861,  the  ties  which  bound  Virginia  to  the 
Union  would  have  been  more  difficult  to  break.  It  is  not  without 
significance  that  the  leading  and  most  persistent  advocate  of  a 
Western  connection,  Joseph  Segar,  although  a  resident  of  the  tide- 
water region,  declined  to  go  with  his  state  in  secession,  and  became 
an  exile  during  the  War.18 

In  the  case  of  Tennessee,  going  South  would  without  doubt  cause 
the  least  disturbance  and  injury  to  established  relationships  of  trade 
and  intercourse.19  Most  of  the  cotton  of  Tennessee  went  via  Mem- 
phis to  New  Orleans.  A  comparatively  small  amount  went  by  rail  to 
Charleston  and  Savannah.  Still  less,  perhaps,  went  up  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  by  other  routes  to  the  factories  of  the  Ohio  valley. 
Tennessee  tobacco  found  an  outlet  chiefly  by  way  of  New  Orleans. 
Mules,  hogs,  grain,  and  whiskey  from  the  farming  districts  were 
sold  to  the  planters  of  the  cotton  belt.  With  the  opening  of  the 
Virginia  and  Tennessee  railroad,  the  export  of  grain  by  way  of 
Virginia  began.  Imports  into  Tennessee,  however,  came  from  all 
directions — from  New  Orleans,  from  Charleston  and  Savannah, 
to  some  extent  from  Virginia,  and  largely,  from  Cincinnati,  Louis- 
ville, and  St.  Louis  by  rivers  and  railroads.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
while  east  Tennessee  was  about  as  firmly  bound  to  the  South  by 
economic  ties  as  any  other  part,  yet  no  district  in  the  South  had  a 
population  more  loyal  to  the  Union.  The  explanation  lies  else- 
where than  in  such  economic  considerations  as  are  here  stated. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  economic  ties  of  Tennessee  was  true 
in  greater  degree  of  Arkansas.  There  were  no  railroads.  Arkansas 

"A  Richmond  correspondent  wrote,  in  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  22,  1860: 
''The  facilities  of  intercommunication  between  Western  and  Eastern  Virginia,  and 
the  frequent  intercourses  which  result  therefrom  have  procured  a  unity  of  sen- 
timent between  the  people  of  both  sections  which  no  one  could  have  anticipated 
ten  years  ago  ....  They  are  breaking  up  the  associations  of  the  people  of  the 
West  with  those  of  the  border  free  states  which  were  heretofore  a  necessity  of 
trade." 

" 'Letter  of  Hon.  Joseph  Segar  to  a  Friend  in  Virginia,  etc.  (pamphlet,  1862). 

ieCf.  Fertig,  Secession  and  Reconstruction  in  Tennessee,  13,  22. 


279]  THE  DECISION  OF  THE  BORDER  STATES  279 

products  found  an  outlet  chiefly  by  river  routes.  Memphis  and 
New  Orleans  were  the  commercial  centers.  Governor  Rector 
stated  the  situation  concisely.  •  Arkansas  was  disposed  to  be  con- 
servative as  were  Maryland,  Virginia,  Missouri,  Kentucky,  and 
Tennessee.  But  Arkansas  was  the  natural  ally  of  the  cotton  states. 
She  was  bound  to  them  by  the  institution  of  slavery.  Missouri 
might  rid  herself  of  it;  Arkansas  could  not.  "With  the  mart  and 
channel  of  Southern  commerce  in  the  possession  and  control  of  the 
States  of  Louisiana  and  Mississippi,  what  would  be  the  condition 
of  Arkansas  should  she  determine  to  adhere  to  the  Union?"20 

In  Kentucky  and  Missouri  it  was  generally  recognized  that  as 
far  as  economic  interests  other  than  slavery  were  concerned,  the 
states  had  much  to  lose  and  little  to  gain  by  seceding.  Mr.  Gamble, 
later  governor  of  Missouri,  put  the  matter  tersely  in  the  Missouri 
Convention:  "Our  interests  as  a  State  are  bound  up  inseparably 
with  the  maintenance  of  the  Union;  our  sympathies,  our  personal 
sympathies,  in  a  large  measure,  are  with  the  people  of  the  South."21 
Most  of  the  trade  and  intercourse  of  these  states  was  with  or  by 
way  of  the  free  states  of  the  North.  They  were  dependent  upon 
about  the  same  markets  as  southern  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Ohio. 
"It  is  true,"  wrote  a  pamphleteer,  "that  much  the  larger  amount 
of  the  trade  of  the  Northwest  tends  to  the  East,  and  not  to  the 
South,  and  if  weighed  in  merely  commercial  scales  the  question 
of  connection,  as  between  the  two,  would  preponderate  in  favor 
of  the  East."22  The  east  and  west  railroads,  built  during  the  last 
decade  or  so,  had  reversed  the  outlet  and  outlook  of  these  and 
other  Western  states;  and  of  this  the  people  were  well  aware.  A 
correspondent  of  John  J.  Crittenden  wrote  him:  "General  Scott's 
plan  would  have  worked  twenty  years  ago.  .  .  .  but  since  rail- 
roads have  intervened  there  can  be  no  division  between  the  people 
of  the  Mississippi  valley  north  of  Kentucky  (including  that  state) 
and  all  East  and  Northeast — the  'railroad'  tells  the  story."23  Dele- 
gates in  the  Missouri  Convention  said  St.  Louis  owed  her  greatness 

"Message  to  the  Legislature,  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  29,  1860. 

"Journal  and  Proceedings  of  the  Missouri  Convention,  Proceedings,  p.  67. 
See  also  the  Address  of  the  Border  State  Convention  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  p.  352.  ' 

"South  Carolina,  Disunion,  and  a  Mississippi  Valley  Confederacy,  14. 

"C.  J.  Davis  to  J.  J.  Crittenden,  Jan.  I,  1861,  /.  /.  Crittenden  MSS. 


28O     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [280 

to  the  Union,  and  nothing  should  be  done  to  blast  her  progress.2* 
They  also  gave  consideration  to  the  prospect  that  the  route  of  the 
Pacific  railroad  would  lie  across  the  state.  "And  Missouri  stands 
in  the  pathway  of  nations;  over  her  soil  this  pathway  must  run, 
just  as  inevitably  as  fate."25 

But  if  economic  and  commercial  ties  made  it  almost  a  necessity 
that  Kentucky  and  Missouri  remain  with  the  North,  their  com- 
mercial relations  with  the  South  were  so  valuable  that  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Union  would  be  a  great  blow  to  their  prosperity.  St. 
Louis  and  Louisville  each  had  a  large  Southern  trade.  Hemp  and 
tobacco  were  sent  South.  Mules  and  horses,  bacon,  pork,  and 
corn  were  shipped  down  the  Mississippi  or  over  the  Louisville  and 
Nashville  railroad  or  by  other  routes  to  the  cotton  and  sugar 
plantations.  The  people  of  the  interior  states,  not  only  Kentucky 
and  Missouri  but  Illinois,  Iowa,  Indiana,  etc.  as  well,  whose  pros- 
perity depended  so  largely  upon  the  internal  trade  with  the  South 
and  upon  unimpeded  access  to  the  sea,  felt  that  they  had  a  greater 
interest  in  the  maintenance  of  the  Union  than  the  people  of  any 
other  section.  Promises  of  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
and  transit  of  foreign  imports  and  exports  across  Southern  terri- 
tory free  of  duty  were  too  insecure  and  inadequate  to  reconcile 
them  to  the  establishment  of  a  foreign  power  between  them  and 
the  Gulf.26  Governor  MaGomn,  of  Kentucky,  who  strongly  sym- 
pathized with  the  secessionists,  said  that  the  "mouth  and  sources 
of  the  Mississippi  river  cannot  be  separated  without  the  horrors  of 
Civil  War."21  Such  facts  as  these  help  to  explain  why  the  people 
of  Kentucky  and  Missouri  were  so  anxious  for  a  compromise  to 
save  the  Union. 

But  considerations  of  benefits  or  injuries  to  economic  interests 
were  by  no  means  the  only  considerations  determining  the  de- 
cision of  border  states.  Others  may  be  briefly  summarized. 

The  question  of  the  relation  of  slavery  to  secession  in  the  border 
states  presents  several  aspects  peculiar  to  them.  The  people  of 
those  states  were  almost  unanimously  opposed  to  reopening  the 

"Journal  and  Proceedings  of  the  Missouri  Convention,  Proceedings,  14,  86. 

xlbid.,  Proceedings,   122. 

Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  396. 

"Great  Debates  in  American  History,  V,  276.  See  also  Coulter,  E.  M.,  "Ef- 
fects of  Secession  upon  the  Commerce  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,"  Miss.  Fal. 
Hist.  Rev.,  Ill,  276-300. 


28 1  ]  THE  DECISION  OF  THE  BORDER  STATES  28 1 

African  slave  trade.  Until  it  had  been  prohibited  by  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  Confederate  States,  the  fear  that  it  might  be  re- 
opened had  been  one  of  the  chief  influences  retarding  the  secession 
movement.28 

The  Constitution  of  the  Confederate  States  gave  congress  the 
power  to  prohibit  the  importation  of  slaves  from  the  slaveholding 
states  of  the  United  States.  The  provision  was  designed  to  bring 
pressure  to  bear  upon  them  to  join  the  Confederacy;29  and,  al- 
though as  a  coercive  measure  it  was  resented  in  the  border  states, 
it  undoubtedly  served  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended.  This 
was  especially  true  in  the  case  of  Virginia,  where  it  was  feared  the 
slave  population  would  soon  become  redundant  if  the  outlet  for 
the  surplus  should  be  cut  off.30 

Secessionists  asserted  that  with  seven  slaveholding  states  out  of 
the  Union  the  remaining  would  be  in  a  hopeless  minority.  Con- 
stitutional guarantees  would  no  longer  suffice  to  protect  slavery 
therein,  for  the  free  states,  then  being  three-fourths  of  all  the 
states,  could  amend  the  Constitution  as  they  might  see  fit,  even  to 
abolish  slavery  altogether.  "If  we  do  not  go  with  the  cotton  states," 
said  J.  Randolph  Tucker,  "our  $250,000,000  of  slave  property 
would  perish."  The  North  would  not  tolerate  it,  and  the  South 
would  not  buy.31  Opponents,  on  the  other  hand,  professed  to 
believe  that  secession  would  be  destructive  of  slavery  in  the  border 
states.  There  would  be  no  fugitive  slave  law;  a  fugitive  who  es- 
caped across  the  line  would  be  as  surely  beyond  recovery  as  he 
would  be  in  Canada.  In  case  of  war  the  border  states  would  be 
invaded,  and  the  slaves  run  off.  Slave  owners,  in  case  of  seces- 

S8Washington  correspondence,  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  22,  1860;  Raleigh  cor- 
respondence, Jan.  12,  1861;  National  Intelligencer,  Nov.  27,  29,  Dec.  29,  1860, 
Feb.  19,  1861;  So.  Lit.  Mes.,  XXXI,  472;  XXXII,  73;  Journal  of  the  Convention 
of  Virginia,  67;  speech  of  Sherrard  Clemens,  of  Virginia,  Moore,  Rebellion  Rec- 
ord, I,  Doc.  p.  24;  South  Carolina,  Disunion,  and  a  Mississippi  Valley  Confed- 
eracy, 4;  Smith,  History  and  Debates  of  the  Convention  of  Alabama,  198, 
208,  210,  251,  259;  and  see  above,  pp.  27072. 

"Smith,  History  and  Debates  of  the  Convention  of  Alabama,  236,  252,  258. 
Yancey  would  have  prohibited  by  constitutional  proviaion  the  importation  of 
slaves  from  slaveholding  states  which  did  not  join  the  Confederacy.  P.  252. 

"Willoughby  Newton,  National  Intelligencer,  Nov.  24,   1860. 

"So.  Lit.  Mes.,  XXXII,  187. 


282     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [282 

sion,  would  sell  or  carry  their  slaves  South.32  The  dangers  were 
particularly  great  in  the  case  of  Missouri,  said  Missourians,  for 
the  state  was  almost  surrounded  by  free  states.33 

Among  the  most  powerful  arguments  against  secession  in  some 
of  the  border  states  were  the  difficulties  of  defending  them  against 
the  North  in  case  of  war.  The  utter  impossibility  of  defending 
the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  against  a  power 
which  could  control  the  sea  and  the  Chesapeake  was  pointed  out.34 
Central  Maryland  would  either  be  at  once  overrun  by  Northern 
troops,  or  would  become  a  battle  ground  of  the  war.35  The  de- 
fenseless position  of  the  trans-Alleghany  portion  of  Virginia  was 
a  deterrent  influence  in  that  state;36  and  Unionists  portrayed  the 
destruction  war  would  bring  to  eastern  Virginia,  perhaps  with  little 
effect.  Kentuckians  took  account  of  the  three  free  states  which 
lay  on  her  long  northern  boundary.37  Missouri  Unionists  said 
secession  could  only  lead  to  the  military  conquest  of  the  state;  for 
it  was  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  free  states  which  must  have  a 
highway  across  it.38  Unionists  demonstrated  the  folly  of  surrender- 
ing a  position  in  the  heart  of  a  vast  nation  for  one  upon  the 
frontier  between  two  nations,  which  might  find  causes  for  frequent 
conflicts.39  To  these  arguments  the  secessionists  could  only  reply, 
before  Sumter,  that  if  all  the  slaveholding  states  would  go  out  to- 

** Journal  and  Proceedings  of  the  Missouri  Convention,  Journal,  p.  35;  Pro- 
ceedings, p.  88;  Joseph  Holt's  "Letter  on  the  Pending  Revolution,"  in  Moore, 
Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  p.  290;  Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  442;  So.  Lit.  Mess., 
XXXII,  73,  quoting  M.  F.  Maury;  Cong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  139,  speech 
of  Andrew  Johnson. 

"Journal  and  Proceedings  of  the  Missouri  Convention,  Journal,  56,  report  of 
the  Committee  on  the  Commissioner  from  Georgia;  Proceedings,  88. 

3<W.  H.  Collins,  Third  Address  to  the  People  oj  Maryland. 

""Speech  of  Reverdy  Johnson  at  Frederick,  Md.,  National  Intelligencer,  May 
II,  1861;  message  of  Gov.  Hicks,  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  p.  159  ff. 

"The  Central  Committee's  address  to  the  people  of  northwestern  Virginia. 
ibid.,  I,  Doc.  p.  328. 

"Ibid.,  I,  Doc.  p.  354,  73,  75. 

^Journal  and  Proceedings  of  the  Missouri  Convention,  Journal,  35,  52;  Pro- 
ceedings, 89. 

"Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  p.  289,  354;  Collins,  Third  Address,  etc.; 
South  Carolina,  Disunion,  and  a  Mississippi  V alley  Confederacy,  13. 


283]  THE  DECISION  OF  THE  BORDER   STATES  283 

gether  there  would  be  no  war;  they  would  form  a  confederacy  so 
powerful  that  the  North  would  not  dare  attack  it.40 

Perhaps  more  effectual  than  the  appeals  to  the  fears  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  border  states  were  the  appeals  to  their  sympathies,  pre- 
judices, and  kinship.  They  were  urged  not  to  stand  by  and  permit, 
or  assist  in,  the  subjugation  of  sister  Southern  states.  The  deter- 
mination of  the  Federal  government  to  maintain  the  Union  by  force 
of  arms  furnished  the  occasion  for  the  secession  of  four  states.  In 
the  cases  of  Virginia  and  Tennessee  it  is  quite  doubtful  that  seces- 
sion would  have  occurred  had  the  seceded  states  been  permitted  to 
depart  in  peace.41  This  was  the  view  taken  by  an  element  in  the 
South  which  wished  to  precipitate  a  conflict  with  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment in  order  to  insure  the  secession  of  the  border  states. 
Resistance  to  coercion  was  the  issue  which  won  over  conservative 
Tennessee  Whigs  such  as  Bell,  E.  H.  Ewing,  Neil  S.  Brown,  and 
John  Callander.42  It  was  the  issue  upon  which  the  secessionists 
made  their  last  stand  in  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri. 

It  is  as  difficult  to  identify  the  secessionists  in  the  border  states 
as  it  was  the  secessionists  in  the  cotton  states.  In  three,  the  people 
were  given  no  opportunity  to  vote  upon  the  issue  until  after  the 
outbreak  of  war.  It  is  impossible  to  state  just  what  the  issue  was 
when  the  elections  were  held  in  the  other  five.  It  is  certain  that 
in  no  state  did  the  majority  favor  secession  if  the  Union  could  be 
preserved  or  reconstructed  without  war.  In  general,  it  would 
seem,  about  the  same  classes  came,  sooner  or  later,  to  favor  seces- 

"So.  Lit.  Mess.,  XXXII,  182  ff.;  Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  730,  quoting  address 
of  ten  Virginia  congressmen;  Letter  of  Hon.  Joseph  Segar  to  a  Friend  in  Vir- 
ginia, 28. 

"Cf.  Fertig,  Secession  and  Reconstruction  in  Tennessee,  20  ff;  Rhodes,  His- 
tory of  the  U.  S.,  Ill,  344,  378,  383;  Beverly  Munford,  Virginians  Attitude  toward 
Slavery  and  Secession;  J.  M.  Botts,  The  Great  Rebellion,  205  ff.  I  do  not  name 
North  Carolina  in  this  connection.  A  large  vote  was  cast  for  secession  in  Jan- 
uary, when  it  was  still  believed  a  reconciliation  could  be  effected.  The  House  of 
Commons  unanimously  resolved  in  February  that  North  Carolina  would  go  with 
the  South  if  reconciliation  failed.  Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  538.  This  was  the  opin- 
ion of  men  in  the  cotton  states.  Report  of  Jacob  Thompson,  Commissioner  from 
Mississippi  to  North  Carolina,  Journal  of  the  State  Convention  [of  Mississippi], 
185.  But  see  J.  G.  de  Roulhac  Hamilton,  Reconstruction  in  North  Carolina,  21  ff.; 
Wm.  K.  Boyd,  "North  Carolina  on  the  Eve  of  Secession,"  Am.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Rept., 
1910,  p.  177. 

"Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  Doc.  pp.  72,  137. 


284     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [284 

sion  which  had  supported  the  secession  movements  in  the  cotton 
states,  namely,  the  people  of  the  planting  sections  and  of  the  cities 
and  towns  closely  identified  in  interests  with  them.  As  in  the  cot- 
ton states,  also,  the  opposition  centered  in  districts  in  which  the 
slave  population  was  small  in  proportion  to  the  white  and  in 
which  farming  rather  than  planting  was  the  chief  occupation  of 
the  people.  Whigs,  in  general,  were  more  adverse  to  secession 
than  Democrats  of  the  same  districts. 

In  North  Carolina  a  convention  election  of  January  28  resulted 
in  the  choice  of  85  constitutional  Unionists  and  35  secessionists. 
The  opinion  seems  to  have  been  quite  prevalent  at  the  time  that 
the  Union  could  yet  be  peacefully  reconstructed;  the  issue,  then, 
was  neither  strictly  Union  versus  disunion,  nor  remaining  with  the 
North  versus  going  with  the  South.  Of  47  counties  in  the  eastern 
part  of  the  state,  where  the  slave  population  was  a  high  per- 
centage of  the  total  in  most  localities,  17  chose  secession  delegates, 
30  Union  delegates.  Of  the  counties  which  went  for  secession  4 
were  normally  Whig,  13  Democratic;  of  the  counties  which  re- 
turned Union  delegates  21  could  be  classed  as  Whig,  9  as  Demo- 
cratic. The  secessionist  counties  were  grouped  pretty  well  in  the 
southeast  corner  of  the  state.  Of  38  counties  in  the  western  part 
of  the  state,  in  few  of  which  the  slaves  constituted  more  than  25 
per  cent  of  the  population,  n  selected  secession,  27  Union  dele- 
gates. Of  the  secession  counties  6  were  normally  Whig,  5  normally 
Democratic;  of  the  counties  returning  Union  majorities,  23  were 
W'hig,  4  Democratic.  The  counties  which  chose  secession  delegates 
were  well  grouped  along  the  South  Carolina  border.  Wilmington 
was  strongly  Democratic  and  secessionist;  Wake  county,  in  which 
Raleigh  was  located,  was  normally  Democratic  but  strongly 
Unionist.43 

In  the  Tennessee  convention  election  of  February  9,  91.803 
votes  were  cast  for  Union,  24,749  f°r  secession  delegates.  Virtually 
all  of  the  secession  votes  were  cast  in  west  and  middle  Tennessee, 
but  the  majority  in  every  section  of  the  state  was  for  Union.44 
At  this  time  the  people  of  Tennessee  seem  to  have  believed  the 

"I  have  used  the  classification  of  delegates  made  by  H.  M.  Wagstaff,  State 
Rights  and  Political  Parties  in  North  Carolina,  134. 

"Annual  Cyclopedia,  I,  677;  New  York  Times,  Feb.  15,  1861. 


285]  THE  DECISION  OF  THE  BORDER  STATES  285 

Union  could  be  peacefully  reconstructed.45  On  June  8  the  action  of 
the  Tennessee  Legislature  declaring  the  state  independent  and 
ratifying  the  Constitution  of  the  Confederate  States  was  submitted 
to  the  people  for  their  ratification.  Overwhelming  majorities  in 
west  and  middle  Tennessee  approved,  but  in  east  Tennessee  the 
vote  was  almost  as  strongly  adverse.46  The  slave  population  of  the 
latter  section  was  very  small  in  comparison  with  the  white. 

An  election  was  held  in  Virginia,  February  4,  to  choose  delegates 
to  a  state  convention.  The  result  was  considered  a  Union  victory, 
although  the  delegates  could  not  be  classified  accurately  as  Union- 
ists and  secessionists.  About  25  or  30  were  considered  uncondi- 
tional secessionists.47  No  test  vote  was  held  in  the  Convention 
upon  a  straight-out  secession  resolution  until  April  4,  when  such  a 
resolution  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  90-45 ,48  This  was  long  after 
it  had  become  apparent  that  the  Union  could  not  be  reconstructed 
by  agreement,  but  before  it  became  certain  that  coercion  was  the 
policy  of  the  government.  All  but  3  of  the  45  votes  for  secession 
were  cast  by  delegates  from  counties  now  in  Virginia;  all  but  14  by 
delegates  from  east  of  the  Blue  Ridge.  All  of  the  counties  with 
large  slave  population  lay  in  the  eastern  section;  it  was  the  plant- 
ing section.  Of  the  45  votes  in  favor  of  secession,  15  were  cast  by 
delegates  from  counties  normally  Whig;  30  by  delegates  from 
counties  normally  Democratic.  The  delegates  from  Richmond  and 
Petersburg,  but  not  the  delegate  from  Norfolk,  voted  for  secession. 
After  Sumter  the  convention  decided  for  secession  by  a  vote  of 
79  to  64.49  The  delegates  from  northwestern  Virginia,  now  West 
Virginia,  voted  almost  solidly  against  secession;  those  from  east 
of  the  Blue  Ridge  voted  almost  as  solidly  for  it;  those  from  the 
intervening  region  were  divided.  This  division  in  the  Convention 
reflected  quite  accurately  the  divisions  among  the  people,  as  shown 

"Report  of  H.  P.  Bell,  Georgia  Commissioner  to  Tennessee,  Journal  of  the 
Convention  of  Georgia,  369;  Fertig,  Secession  and  Reconstruction  in  Tenn.,  21. 

"Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  II,  Doc.  p.  169. 

"Rhodes,  History  of  the  U.  S.,  Ill,  309;  Tyler,  Letters  and  Times  of  the 
Tylers,  II,  621;  Annual  Cyclopedia,  1,  730. 

48 'Journal  of  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  [of  the  Convention  of  Virginia],  31. 

"This  is  the  test  vote,  not  the  vote  upon  the  adoption  of  the  ordinance  of 
secession.  Journal  of  the  Secret  Session,  p.  8. 


286     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  l84O-l86l    [286 

by  the  popular  vote  on  the  ordinance  of  secession  of  May  23  and 
by  the  subsequent  division  of  the  state.50 

Maryland  and  Kentucky  declared,  finally,  for  the  Union,  but 
there  was  strong  sympathy  in  each  with  the  secession  movement. 
In  Maryland  the  East  Shore  and  the  western  part  were  strongly 
Unionist.  Secession  sentiment  developed  chiefly  in  the  planting 
region  of  central  Maryland,  and  was  reflected  in  Baltimore.  In 
Kentucky  it  was  strongest  in  the  Blue  Grass  region  of  the  central 
part  and  the  tobacco  counties  of  the  southwest.  The  delegates  in 
the  Missouri  Convention  who  wished  to  resist  coercion  of  the 
seceded  states  by  the  Federal  government  represented,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  counties  along  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  rivers.51 
There  were  the  districts  which  had  a  considerable  slave  popula- 
tion; there  tobacco  and  hemp  were  grown. 

The  opposition  of  the  non-slaveholding  districts  of  the  border 
states  to  secession  did  not,  in  general,  signify  hostility  to  slavery. 
It  signified,  however,  a  degree  of  indifference  to  the  preservation 
of  slavery  and  a  disposition  to  remember  that  slavery  was  not  the 
only  important  interest  to  be  considered.  This  disposition  found 
frequent  expression.  For  example,  Mr.  Brodhead,  in  the  Missouri 
Convention,  said  negro  slavery  was  not  the  only  great  interest  in 
Missouri.  Slaves  comprised  less  than  one-ninth  of  the  taxable 
property  of  the  state.  The  white  population  was  increasing  four 
times  as  rapidly  as  the  slave.  The  slaves  were  engaged  in  raising 
hemp  and  tobacco  principally.  There  were  mining,  manufacturing, 
and  commercial  interests,  to  carry  on  which  white  labor  was  re- 
quired. If  Missouri  seceded,  the  white  laborers  would  not  come, 
"when  they  know  that,  so  far  as  our  political  power  is  concerned, 
we  shall  be  subjected  to  the  cotton  lords  of  South  Carolina  and 
Louisiana."52  Only  in  a  few  localities,  such  as  St.  Louis,  which  had 
a  large  German  and  Northern  population,  was  there  an  active  hos- 
tility to  slavery.  The  Unionists  of  the  border  states  entered  the 
war  with  the  understanding  that  it  was  a  war  to  preserve  the 
Union,  not  to  destroy  slavery. 

™  Annual  Cyclopedia,  737  ff.,  743;  Rhodes,  III,  387. 
B1An  analysis  of  several  divisions  of  the  Convention. 

83 'Journal  and  Proceedings  of  Missouri  Convention,  Proceedings,  122.   See  also 
ibid.,  Journal,  35;  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  374. 


28/J  THE  DECISION  OF  THE  BORDER  STATES  287 

In  two,  at  least,  of  the  border  states,  Tennessee  and  Virginia,  the 
divisions  of  the  people  on  the  secession  issue  corresponded  rather 
closely  to  long  standing  sectional  divisions.  Tennessee  sectionalism 
was  based  largely  upon  social  differences  between  the  people  of 
the  east  and  those  of  the  middle  and  west.  The  people  of  east 
Tennessee  resented  the  political  domination  of  the  state  by  the 
planting  society.  While  they  did  not  hate  slavery,  they  believed 
that  the  South  should  be  a  white  man's  country,  and  that  one  man 
was  as  good  as  another.  They  were  not  disposed  to  fight  in  sup- 
port of  a  movement  which  they  conceived  to  have  been  inaugur- 
ated to  perpetuate  and  establish  more  firmly  an  aristocratic  social 
system.  Andrew  Johnson  was  a  typical  representative  of  east  Ten- 
nessee. "We  find  ..."  said  he,  "that  the  whole  idea  is  to  es- 
tablish a  republic  based  upon  slavery  exclusively,  in  which  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  are  not  to  participate."  And  again,  "We  hold 
[in  east  Tennessee]  that  it  is  upon  the  intelligent  free  white 
people  of  the  country  that  all  governments  should  rest,  and  by 
them  all  governments  should  be  controlled."53  The  old  sectional 
division  in  Virginia  had  grown  in  part  out  of  social  differences 
similar  to  those  in  Tennessee,  in  part  from  separation  by  geo- 
graphical barriers.  Politically  it  had  found  expression  in  disputes 
over  legislative  apportionment,  appropriations  for  and  location  of 
state  aided  internal  improvements,  and  the  apportionment  of  tax- 
ation. It  is  significant  that  the  Virginia  Convention  submitted  to 
the  people  of  the  state  along  with  the  secession  ordinance,  an 
amendment  to  the  constitution  providing  that  "Taxation  shall  be 
equal  and  uniform  throughout  the  commonwealth,  and  all  prop- 
erty shall  be  taxed  in  proportion  to  its  value,  .  .  .  "54  The  pur- 
pose of  the  amendment  was,  of  course,  to  insure  the  taxation  of 
slaves  at  the  same  rate  as  other  property;  its  proposal  was  a  be- 
lated effort  of  the  East  to  conciliate  the  West.  The  sectionalism 
of  North  Carolina  was  not  so  pronounced,  but  was  not  without 
bearing  upon  the  alignment  upon  the  secession  issue.  In  North 
Carolina,  too,  the  ad  valorem  issue  was  agitating  the  state  upon 
the  eve  of  secession.  It  is  not  possible  within  the  limits  of  this 

"Speech  in  the  Senate,  July  21,  1861,  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  II,  Doc.  p. 
425-6.  See  also  speech  of  Dec.  19,  1860,  Cong.  Globe,  36  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  140  ff. 

"Journal  of  the  Convention  of  Virginia,  106,  134,  150;  Ordinances  Adopted  by 
the  Convention  of  Virginia  in  Secret  Session,  p.  21. 


288     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  184O-1 86 1    [288 

study  to  develop  the  subject  of  the  relation  of  long  standing  sec- 
tional divisions  within  several  Southern  states  to  the  divisions  of 
the  people  upon  the  question  of  secession;  but  no  study  of  the 
reasons  for  the  attitude  taken  by  the  people  in  the  largely  non- 
slaveholding  districts  would  be  complete  which  does  not  take  them 
into  account. 

The  decision  of  the  border  states  was  slowly  and  carefully  made. 
It  was  determined  largely  by  fears  for  slavery,  feelings  of  sym- 
pathy and  kinship  with  the  people  of  the  cotton  states,  and  con- 
siderations of  their  position  in  case  of  war;  but  the  people  of  the 
border  states  were  also  powerfully  influenced  in  their  decision  by 
their  judgments  as  to  the  probable  effect  of  secession  upon  the 
economic  interests,  slavery  aside,  of  the  localities  involved.  From 
this  viewpoint,  going  with  the  South  or  remaining  with  the  Union 
appeared  as  the  choice  of  two  evils.  Only  in  eastern  Virginia  and 
in  North  Carolina  did  the  people  of  the  border  states  share  to  any 
considerable  extent  the  expectations  of  great  material  benefits  to 
follow  secession  and  the  formation  of  a  Southern  confederacy 
which  the  people  of  the  cotton  states  entertained. 


CHAPTER  XII 
SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSIONS 

In  this  study  we  have  considered  some  of  the  economic  aspects 
of  Southern  sectionalism  during  about  twenty  years  prior  to  the 
Civil  War.  This  period  does  not  by  any  means  include  the  begin- 
ning of  such  sectionalism. 

During  this  period  the  people  of  the  South,  generally,  were 
aware  of  a  disparity  between  the  North  and  South  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  former  in  material  development — population,  wealth, 
commerce,  industry,  financial  strength,  distribution  of  the  comforts 
and  conveniences  of  life.  Although  at  intervals  the  Southern 
people  were  inclined  to  be  satisfied  with  their  degree  of  prosperity, 
their  economic  organization  and  methods,  and  the  progress  of  their 
section,  in  general  they  felt  that  they  did  not  enjoy  the  prosperity 
and  were  not  making  the  material  progress  that  the  South's  nat- 
ural resources  and  their  own  efforts  entitled  them  to  expect. 
This  dissatisfaction  was  not  uniformly  distributed  throughout  the 
South.  It  was  greatest  in  the  older  states.  It  developed  in  the 
newer  states  only  as  conditions  there  approximated  those  of  the 
older.  It  was  greater  in  the  planting  than  in  the  farming  regions. 
It  was  greatly  augmented  because  a  political  struggle  between  the 
sections,  over  slavery  especially,  called  sharp  attention  to  the 
relationship  between  material  progress  and  political  power. 

The  "decline"  of  the  South  was  attributed  to  various  causes  by 
those  who  perceived  it.  One  group  persistently  emphasized  the 
alleged  unequal  operation  of  the  Federal  government  upon  the 
economic  development  of  the  sections.  Somewhat  earlier  than  the 
period  of  this  study,  Southern  leaders,  particularly  of  the  planting 
regions,  had  come  to  hold  widely  different  views  from  their  col- 
leagues in  other  sections  as  to  the  proper  revenue,  expenditure, 
and  commercial  policies  to  be  followed  by  the  Federal  government. 
They  opposed  high  tariffs,  heavy  governmental  expenditures,  aid 
to  private  enterprises,  bounties,  and  special  favors  of  all  kinds, 
because  they  thought  their  section  was  not  equally  benefited 
thereby.  As  years  went  by,  and  they  were  not  always  able  to 
make  their  views  prevail,  they,  of  the  Calhoun  school,  came  to  at- 
tribute the  decline  of  the  South  to  policies  which  they  had  opposed. 
This  group  was  strong  in  the  cotton  states. 

289 


290     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,l84O-l86l 

Others  attached  comparatively  little  significance  to  governmental 
reactions  upon  economic  development;  they  attributed  Southern 
"decline"  chiefly  to  a  too  exclusive  devotion  to  undiversified  agri- 
culture attended,  as  it  was,  by  industrial,  commercial,  and  financial 
dependence  upon  the  North  and  Europe,  and  by  unsatisfactory 
methods  of  marketing  and  buying.  These  conditions  had  come 
about  in  a  natural  way;  but  because  of  them  the  Southern  people 
produced  wealth  while  others  enjoyed  it.  Men  of  this  class  would 
have  diversified  agriculture;  they  pleaded  for  the  introduction  of 
cotton  manufactures;  they  proposed  plans  for  securing  direct  trade 
with  Europe;  they  dreamed  of  railroad  connections  with  the 
Northwest  and  with  the  Pacific  which  would  rehabilitate  Southern 
cities;  they  advocated  various  measures  of  a  protective  character 
on  the  part  of  state  and  local  governments;  they  asked  that  sec- 
tional patriotism  and  pride  take  the  form  of  developing  the 
economic  resources  of  the  South. 

These  classes,  generally,  agreed  that  slavery  was  not  the  cause 
of  the  lagging  prosperity  of  the  section.  They  agreed,  slaveholders 
and  non-slaveholders,  that  slavery,  the  plantation  system,  and  the 
production  of  great  staples  must  remain  fundamental  features  of 
the  South's  economic  system.  Some  of  them,  to  be  sure,  were 
aware  that  slavery  had  off-setting  disadvantages  in  that  it  re- 
stricted the  opportunities  of  white  labor,  deprived  it  of  leadership, 
and,  consequently,  deprived  the  South  of  its  full  services,  and 
acted  as  a  bar  to  immigration.  There  was  a  class,  also,  in  the 
South  which  opposed  slavery,  namely,  non-slaveholders  of  the 
laboring  class  who  came  into  competition  with  slave  labor;  but 
the  class  was  only  beginning  to  be  numerous  and  vocal. 

Not  economic  reasons  only  explain  the  determination  of  the 
great  majority  to  maintain  the  institution  of  slavery.  Aside  from 
the  fact  that  it  constituted  a  vast  vested  interest,  that  it  was  es- 
tablished in  the  social  organization,  and  social  prestige  attached 
to  the  owners  of  big  plantations,  was  the  firm  conviction  that  a 
superior  and  an  inferior  race  could  not  live  side  by  side  (the 
negroes  were  here  to  stay)  without  the  greatest  social  disorders 
unless  the  inferior  race  were  in  bondage.  Some  of  the  staunchest 
defenders  of  the  institution  refused  to  support  plans  for  the 
economic  regeneration  of  the  South,  because  they  feared  that,  if 
successful,  they  would  prove  incompatible  with  the  continued  se- 


291]  SUMMARY    AND    CONCLUSIONS  2QI 

curity  of  slavery.  The  majority,  however,  were  either  unaware  of 
the  incompatibility  or  unafraid.  Like  their  fellow  Americans  in 
the  other  sections,  most  Southerners  were  not  seeking  a  static 
society.  They  were  willing  to  adapt  themselves  to  changing  cir- 
cumstances. And,  while  progress  and  change  may  have  been  less 
rapid  in  the  ante-bellum  South  than  elsewhere  in  the  Union,  it  is 
an  error  to  regard  Southern  society  as  stationary. 

Those  who  emphasized  the  unequal  operation  of  the  Federal 
government  as  a  cause  for  Southern  decline  came  early  to  believe 
that  independent  nationality  would  result  in  great  material  ad- 
vantages. Many  of  those  who  advanced  the  various  plans  for  re- 
generation mentioned  above  came  eventually  to  believe  that  they 
could  better  be  carried  into  effect  in  an  independent  republic. 
These  views  presented  repeatedly  to  the  Southern  people  con- 
vinced the  great  majority  in  the  cotton  states  that,  while  secession 
might  not  be  attended  by  any  vast  positive  benefits,  it  would  at 
least  not  be  attended  by  any  serious  disadvantages;  thus  were 
they  reconciled  to  a  step  which  they  were  convinced  was  neces- 
sary to  preserve  slavery  and  maintain  Southern  honor.  When  the 
auspicious  occasion  came,  the  cotton  states  promptly  went  out  of 
the  Union.  The  people  of  the  border  states  hesitated.  With  them 
slavery  was  not  such  a  predominating  interest.  From  an  economic 
point  of  view  they  stood  to  lose  whether  they  went  out  or  stayed 
in.  But  confronted  by  a  fait  accompli,  and  war  on  one  side  or  the 
other,  they  went  with  misgivings,  where  their  sympathies,  associa- 
tions, or  interests  chiefly  lay. 

Now  what  basis  had  Southern  sectionalism  in  actual  economic 
facts?  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  divergent  economic  interests 
of  the  sections;  one  section  was  growing  less  rapidly  in  wealth  and 
numbers,  and  was  economically  dependent  upon  the  other.  The 
divergence  dated  far  back,  even  into  colonial  times.  Fundamental 
causes  lay  in  geography,  climate,  soil,  and  natural  resources.  Less 
important  were  conditions  of  settlement.  The  South  had  received 
a  smaller  proportion  of  thrifty,  sturdy,  middle  class  stock  than 
had  the  North. 

Slavery  was  both  effect  and  cause.  In  days  when  slavery  was 
considered  no  evil,  natural  conditions  (soil  and  climate)  explain 
why  slavery  was  established  and  flourished  chiefly  below  New 
Jersey.  Once  established,  however,  slavery,  notwithstanding  its 


292     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-1 86 1    [292 

great  services  in  clearing  forests,  draining  marshes,  and  growing 
great  crops  of  staple  products,  was  responsible  for  or  tended  to 
perpetuate  some  of  the  evils  of  the  South's  economic  system.  It 
tended  to  keep  the  South  exclusively  agricultural  and  to  confine 
agriculture  largely  to  the  production  of  a  few  great  staples,  because 
it  was  best  adopted  to  such  an  organization.  It  was  largely  re- 
sponsible for  a  great  mass  of  undirected,  semi-productive  white 
labor  in  the  South. 

But,  not  too  much  should  be  attributed  to  slavery.  The  South 
was  vast  in  area;  population  spread  easily  and,  perforce,  remained 
sparse.  In  1860  the  oldest  portions  of  the  South  still  possessed 
characteristics  of  a  frontier,  and  their  business  methods  were  ap- 
propriate thereto;  they  were  still  in  the  exploitation  stage.  The 
South  was  farther  from  Europe  than  the  North.  Her  harbors  were 
not  so  good  as  those  of  the  North.  Her  mineral  resources  were 
less  extensive  and  less  accessible.  Her  soil,  except  in  localities,  was 
less  productive  than  that  of  the  Northwest.  Her  climate  was  more 
enervating  than  that  of  other  sections. 

The  differing  views  of  governmental  policies  grew  out  of  differ- 
ent economic  conditions.  Northern  states  could  be  benefited  by 
protective  duties;  they  demanded  them  and  at  times  secured  them. 
There  were  more  Northern  enterprises  and  projects  which  were  felt 
to  be  entitled  to  government  aid;  insistent  demands  were  made  for 
such  aid  and  frequently  secured.  More  Federal  officials  were  re- 
quired in  the  North;  supplies  and  equipment  for  government  needs 
could  be  more  readily  secured  there;  consequently  most  of  the 
governmental  expenditures  were  made  in  the  North.  There  was 
justice  in  the  Southern  complaint  that  the  South  paid  more  in  the 
form  of  taxes  than  she  received  back  in  disbursements,  and  that 
the  difference  was  a  drain  upon  Southern  resources.  But  in  those 
days  Federal  taxes  were  comparatively  light,  and  governmental 
expenditures  comparatively  small;  the  operation  of  the  Federal 
government  would  seem  to  have  been  of  small  consequence  in  de- 
termining the  economic  condition  of  sections  as  compared  with 
other  great  economic  forces  of  the  time. 

What  shall  be  said  of  the  remedies  for  Southern  "decline?" 
Much  more  might  have  been  accomplished  than  was  had  the  plans 
advanced  by  the  progressives  been  earnestly  and  intelligently  car- 
ried out  either  by  the  state  and  local  governments  or  the  cooper- 


293]  SUMMARY    AND    CONCLUSIONS  293 

ative  efforts  of  private  citizens;  for  examples,  commercial  educa- 
tion, better  banking  laws,  improved  methods  of  marketing  cotton. 
But  the  remedies  lay  chiefly  in  time  and  the  natural  order  of 
events.  Greater  density  of  population  would  have  come.  Slavery 
or  no  slavery,  capital  would  have  come  in  or  would  have  ac- 
cumulated out  of  the  profits  of  agriculture.  White  labor  must  have 
been  put  to  work,  first,  perhaps,  in  cotton  culture  and  later  in 
other  industries.  Cotton  manufactures  would  have  sprung  up  as 
they  promised  to  do  in  the  forties,  and  as  they  did  a  few  decades 
later.  The  Pacific  railroad  would  have  been  built.  The  quantity 
of  commerce  would  have  become  great  enough  to  warrant  direct 
trade  with  Europe.  The  development  of  the  section's  forest  and 
mineral  resources  would  have  begun.  But  the  South  did  not  wait 
for  time  and  the  natural  order  of  events.  It  is  perhaps  idle  to 
speculate  in  regard  to  the  economic  future  of  the  Southern  states 
if  they  could  have  become  an  independent  confederacy  without 
war  threatening  national  integrity.  There  is  little  likelihood  that 
secession  would  have  proved  the  magic  proponents  prophesied; 
about  the  same  progress  would  have  been  made  as  in  the  Union. 
Slavery  would  have  endured  somewhat  longer.  The  foreign  slave 
trade  would  not  have  been  reopened.  Some  industries  might  have 
been  artificially  stimulated.  A  measure  of  financial  independence, 
as  far  as  the  actual  transaction  of  business  was  concerned,  would 
probably  have  been  secured.  But  the  economic  advantages  would 
have  been  off-set  by  the  disadvantages  of  increased  cost  of  govern- 
ment and  the  barriers  imposed  upon  trade  with  states  of  the 
Union,  with  which  trade  had  formerly  been  free. 

The  conditions  were  not  right  and  the  means  not  present  for 
the  formation  among  the  Southern  people  of  a  thorough  under- 
standing of  the  great  economic  problems  of  the  section.  The  press 
was  poor  and  almost  wholly  partisan.  DeBow's  Review,  after  its 
founding  in  1846,  contained  almost  everything  of  value  written 
on  the  economic  conditions  and  problems  of  the  South.  The 
volumes  were  of  very  unequal  merit;  many  of  the  articles  were 
flimsy  in  character.  DeBow  himself,  while  a  brilliant  journalist, 
possessed  of  a  vast  fund  of  information,  and  a  man  of  prodigious 
industry,  was  neither  a  man  of  broad  grasp  nor  an  impartial 
seeker  after  truth.  Few  books  of  value  on  economic  subjects  were 
published.  Much  as  was  said  and  written  on  the  slavery  ques- 


294     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840- 1 86 1    [294 

tion,  for  example,  no  considerable  study  of  the  economics  of 
slavery  of  any  value  was  produced.  Too  much  that  was  written 
was  based  upon  insufficient  information  and  was  speculative  in 
character.  A  few  men  apparently  did  the  thinking  on  economic 
questions  for  the  vocal  part  of  the  population.  The  reading  public 
was  small;  probably  the  thinking  public  also.  The  platform  and 
the  stump  could  and  did  contribute  little  to  an  understanding  of 
economic  problems.  The  schools  had  not  yet  become  centers  of 
study  and  research  along  economic  lines,  especially.  Men  of  ex- 
perience in  large  business  affairs  were  comparatively  too  few,  and 
seem  to  have  written  and  talked  too  little.  Much  of  the  population 
was  volatile  and  excitable.  The  bitter  sectional  quarrel  over  slav- 
ery was  not  conducive  to  calm  thinking.  After  all,  however,  the 
remarkable  thing  is  not  how  much  intelligent  consideration  the 
Southern  people  gave  to  their  economic  conditions  and  problems 
but  how  little.  Northerners  and  Englishmen  contributed  some- 
thing to  an  understanding  of  these  matters,  but  too  much  that  they 
wrote  was  unsympathetic  in  character.1 

And  the  Northern  people  as  a  whole  did  not  have  that  sympa- 
thetic understanding  of  the  complex  social  and  economic  problems 
of  the  South  which  was  requisite  to  peace  and  amity  between  the 
sections  and  the  eventual  solution  of  those  problems.  The  problems 
and  interests  of  the  sections  were  so  different  that  serious  conflict 
could  be  avoided  only  by  mutual  understanding,  sympathy,  and 
forbearance.  The  sections  drifted  into  a  war  which  was  not  inev- 
itable. 


Notable  for  either  breadth  of  understanding  or  sympathetic  treatment  or 
both  were:  Kettell,  Southern  Wealth  and  Northern  Profits;  Olmsted,  A  Journey 
in  the  Seaboard  Slave  States;  A  Journey  through  Texas;  A  Journey  in  the  Back 
Country;  The  Cotton  Kingdom;  Weston,  The  Progress  of  Slavery  in  the  United 
States;  Russell,  North  America  (English). 


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APPENDIX 


TABLE  III— REGISTERED  AND  ENROLLED  AND  LICENSED  TONNAGE 
IN  STATES  AND  DISTRICTS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  1793-1860* 


STATE 

1793 

1810 

CITY 

1837 

1850 

1860 

Massachusetts  (^egif  ^ 
[Enrolled^ 

135,599 
51,402 

352,806 
107,260 

Boston  .  .  . 

127,955 
73,049 

270,510 
50,177 

411,410 

52,802 

New  York...  /Registered 
[Enrolled 

45,355 
13,986 

188,556 
83,536 

New  York 

191,322 
219,549 

44i  ,336 
394,230 

838,449 
625,551 

Pennsylvania  /Registered 
[Enrolled 

60,924 

4,579 

109,628 
14,255 

Philadelphia 

39,156 
42,592 

64,205 
142,292 

67,094 
174,642 

Maryland...  /Registered 
[Enrolled 

26,792 
9,512 

90,045 
46,247 

Baltimore  . 

34,954 
32,153 

90,669 
58,349 

114,185 
85,923 

Virginia  {^f^ 
[Enrolled 

23,997 
12,093 

45,339 
31,284 

Norfolk  .  .  . 

1,864 

10,857 

10,542 
13,592 

10,452 
15,934 

No.  Carolina.  /Registered 
[Enrolled 

10,167 
2,764 

26,472 
10,562 

Wilmington 

6,551 

2,o88 

9,123 
6,074 

13,372 
io,335 

So.  Carolina..  /R^tered 
[Enrolled 

12,998 
2,058 

43,354 
9,449 

Charleston 

8,226 
12,957 

15,377 
17,915 

38,490 
26,934 

Georgia..  .  /Registered 
\Enrolled 

1,568 
283 

12,405 
3,107 

Savannah  . 

6,493 
6,414 

io,437 
9,293 

27,560 
12,280 

Alabama..  .  /Registered 
[Enrolled 

Mobile  .  .  . 

2,733 
7,585 

7,403 
i6,753 

22,442 
30,314 

Orleans  Ty...  /Roistered 

[Enrolled 

11,386 
1,326 

New  Orleans 

3i,383 
60,992 

86,668 
165,040 

132,199 
96,043 

Timothy  Pitkin,  Statistical  View  of  the  Commerce  of  the  United  States,  pp.  397  ff. ;   Com- 
merce and  Navigation,  1838,  p.   308;    1850,  Statement  No.    15;    1860,  p.  658. 
tEngaged  in  the  foreign  trade. 
{Including  licensed.    Engaged  in  the  coastwise  trade,  etc. 


'*"  te  in*, 

iff"  i  -^  * 

298     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1 86 1    [298 


TABLE  IV— CONSUMPTION  OF  COTTON  IN 

THE  UNITED  STATES,  1840-1861* 

(Bales  of  500  Ibs.  each) 


Year 

North,  includ- 
ing Maryland 

South  and 
West 

South,  includ- 
ing Virginia 

West,  includ- 
ing Kentucky 

1839-1840 

286,193 

59,000 

" 

1840-1841 

282,288 

70,000 

1841-1842 

258,850 

64,000 

1842-1843 

315,782 

70,000 

1843-1844 

336,057 

71,000 

1844-1845 

374,5o6 

80,000 

1845-1846 

411,810 

85,000 

1846-1847 

417,476 

91,000 

1847-1848 

523,892 

92,152 

49,652 

42,500 

1848-1849 

503,201 

130,000 

95,000 

35,ooo 

1849-1850 

465,702 

137,012 

109,512 

27,500 

1850-1851 

386,429 

99,185 

87,185 

12,000 

1851-1852 

588,322 

111,281 

95,281 

16,000 

1852-1853 

650,393 

153,332 

123,332 

30,000 

1853-1854 

592,284 

144,952 

106,952 

38,000 

1854-1855 

57i,H7 

135,295 

109,295 

26,000 

1855-1856 

633,027 

137,712 

95,712 

42,000 

1856-1857 

665,718 

154,218 

116,218 

38,000 

1857-1858 

452,185 

H3,377 

104,377 

39,000 

1858-1859 

760,218 

167,433 

122,433 

45,000 

1859-1860 

792,521 

185,522 

136,522 

49,000 

1860-1862 

650,357 

193,383 

141,383 

52,000 

*The  table  was  made  from  the  estimates  of  the  New  York  Shipping  List,  as  quoted  in 
Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  and  E.  J.  Donnell's  History  of  Cotton,  and  those  of  C.  F. 
M'Cay,  of  Georgia,  in  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  XXIII,  601. 


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North  Carolinians.   Columbus,  1884. 
WISE,  BARTON  H.  Life  of  Henry  A.  Wise.  New  York,  1899. 

STATE  AND  LOCAL  HISTORIES 

AVERY,  ISAAC.  The  History  of  the  State  of  Georgia  from  1850  to  1881;    .  .  .    New 

York,  1 88 1. 

BROWN,  WILLIAM  G.  A  History  of  Alabama.  New  York,  1900. 
BURTON,  H.  W.  The  History  of  Norfolk.   Norfolk,  1877. 
CABLE,  GEORGE  W.  History  and  Present  Condition  of  New  Orleans  (Tenth  Census, 

XIX,  Pt.  II,  213-95). 
CARR,  LUCIEN.  Missouri,  A  Bone  of  Contention  (American  Commonwealths  series). 

Boston,  1888. 

CORDOZA,  J.  N.  Reminiscences  of  Charleston.   Charleston,  1866. 
FORREST,  WILLIAM  S.  Historical  and  Descriptive  Sketches  of  Norfolk  and  Vicinity. 

.  .  .    Philadelphia,  1853. 

FORTIER,  ALCEE.  The  History  of  Louisiana,  Vol.  IV.  4  vols.  New  York,  1904. 
GARRISON,  GEORGE  P.  Texas  (American  Commonwealths  series).    Boston,  1903. 
GAYARRE,  CHARLES.  History  of  Louisiana,  Vol.  IV,  The  American  Domination. 

4  vols.   New  Orleans,  1903. 
HAMILTON,  PETER  J.  Mobile  of  the  Five  Flags,  the  Story  of  the  River  Basin  and 

Coast  about  Mobile  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Present.   Boston,  1913. 
HOWISON,  ROBERT  R.  A  History  of  Virginia  from  Its  Discovery  and  Settlement  by 

Europeans  to  the  Present  Time.    2  vols.   Philadelphia,  1848. 
McELROY,  R.  M.  Kentucky  in  the  Nation's  History.   New  York,  1909. 
MOORE,  J.  W.  History  of  North  Carolina.  2  vols.    1880. 
ROWLAND,  DUNBAR,  ed.  Encyclopedia  of  Mississippi  History.    2  vols.    Madison, 

1907. 
SHALER,  N.  S.  Kentucky  (American  Commonwealths  series).    Boston,  1885. 


313]  BIBLIOGRAPHY  313 

GENERAL  HISTORIES 

Of  the  many  general  histories  covering  the  period,  the  following  have  especially 
valuable  chapters  or  sections  dealing  with  topics  discussed  in  this  thesis: 
The  American  Nation:  A  History,  A.  B.  Hart,  ed.  27  vols.  New  York,  1906 — . 
Vol.  16,  Hart,  A.  B.,  Abolition  and  Slavery,  especially,  chs.  I-X. 
Vol.  17,  GARRISON,  GEORGE  P.,  Westward  Extension,  ch.  XII. 
Vol.  1 8,  SMITH,  T.  C,  Parties  and  Slavery,  chs.  IV,  V,  XIII,  XIX,  XX. 
Vol.  19,  CHAD  WICK,  F.  E.,  Causes  of  the  Civil  War,  chs.  I-IV,  IX. 
The  Chronicles  of  America  Series,  ALLEN  JOHNSON,  ed.  50  vols.  New  Haven,  1918 — . 
Vol.  24,  STEPHENSON,  N.  W.,  Texas  and  the  Mexican  War,  especially  ch.  IX. 
Vol.  27,  DODD,  WILLIAM  E.,  The  Cotton  Kingdom. 

Vol.  29,  STEPHENSON,  N.  W.,  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Union,  especially  chs. 
I-VI. 

Vol.  30,  STEPHENSON,  N.  W.,  The  Day  of  the  Confederacy,  especially  chs.  I-IV. 
DODD,  W.  E.  Expansion  and  Conflict,  chs.  VII-XIV  (Vol.  Ill  of  the  Riverside  His- 

tory  of  the  United  States).  Boston,  1915. 

HOLST,  HERMAN  E.  VON.  Constitutional  and  Political  History  of  the  United  States, 
especially  Vol.  I,  chs.  IX,  X;  Vol.  Ill,  ch.  XVII;  Vol.  VII,  chs.  VII,  VIII.  8  vols. 
Chicago,  1877-92. 
MCMASTER,  JOHN  B.  A  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States,  Vols.  VII  and 

VIII,  passim.  8  vols.   New  York,  1888-1913. 

RHODES,  JAMES  FORD.  History  of  the  United  States  from  the  Compromise  of  1850, 
especially  Vol.  I,  chs.  I,  IV;  Vol.  II,  chs.  XII-XV;  Vol.  III.  7  vols.  New  York, 
1896-1906. 
The  South  in  the  Building  of  the  Nation,  by  J.  A.  C.  Chandler,  et  a/.,  Vols.  I-V, 

especially  Vol.  IV,  Pt.  Ill,  ch.  II.    Richmond,  1909-13. 

THORPE,  FRANCIS  NEWTON.  The  Civil  War:  The  National  View,  chs.  1-IV  (Vol.  XV 
of  the  History  of  North  America^  GUY  CARLETON  LEE,  ed.).  Philadelphia,  1906. 


INDEX 


Adams,  Governor,  of  South  Carolina, 
for  revival  of  slave  trade,  213,  218 

African  Labor  Supply  Association,  214 

Agriculture,  plantation  and  farm,  u, 
201;  absorbs  capital,  24;  long  de- 
pressions in  18405,  33-35;  diversifi- 
cation urged,  35-37»  4°-43>  2OI-4>  29°; 
diversion  of  capital  to  manufactures 
advised,  36-37,  40-46;  glorification  of, 
51,  204;  prosperity  of  (1850-60),  199- 
230;  not  being  diversified,  201-4,  228; 
progress  of,  and  manufactures  com- 
pared, 228;  see  also  cotton,  tobacco, 
sugar 

Alabama,  mineral  survey,  42,  170;  dis- 
union movement,  73,  75,  77,  90;  dis- 
criminatory taxation,  156;  retaliation 
against  North,  160;  no  state  aid  to 
railroads,  172;  agricultural  condi- 
tions, 202-4;  slaves  in  mechanical 
pursuits,  219;  sectionalism,  220,  232, 
241;  manufactures,  227;  secession, 
232,  238,  241  f.;  on  foreign  slave  trade, 
270 

Amazon  river,  Southern  interest  in 
navigation  of  and  steamship  lines  to, 
1 1 8,  130,  132,  133,  139 

Anticipations  of  the  Future  to  Serve  as 
Lessons  for  the  Present,  etc.,  187-89 

Arkansas,  aid  to  internal  improvements, 
173;  secession,  233,  278 

Augusta,  Georgia,  direct  trade  conven- 
tions, 17  ff.;  cotton  manufactures,  61 
notes,  262;  Northerners  in,  100 

Baltimore,  seeks  steamship  line  to 
Europe,  116;  Southern  Commercial 
Convention,  129-31;  attempts  to 
profit  by  sectional  struggle,  176;  and 
secession,  275,  277,  286 

Banks,  extent  of  capital,  12,  23,  101, 
107;  question  of  increasing  capital  in 
Virginia,  24,  27;  improvements  sug- 
gested, 26-27;  methods  criticized,  106, 
no,  195;  position  strengthened,  205, 
229;  see  also  capital  and  credits 

Barnard,  F.  A.  P.,  on  Southern  indus- 
trial dependence,  49;  on  causes  of  dis- 
union movement,  85 

Bell,  John,  in  Southern  Commercial 
Convention,  131-32;  opposes  dis- 
unionist  doctrines,  193;  candidate  for 
president,  238;  on  effects  of  secession, 
250;  goes  over  to  secessionists,  283 


Benton,  Thomas  H.,  denounces  Nash- 
ville Convention,  74;  and  Southern 
Commercial  Convention,  i37n.,  218 

Berrien,  J.  M.,  90;  proposes  discrimina- 
tory taxation,  160 

Blockade  of  the  South,  disunionist  ex- 
pectations regarding,  187-88,  208; 
effects,  266-67 

Bluffton  movement,  37-39,  152;  and 
disunion,  69-70;  design  to  revive,  73 

Border  states,  attitude  toward  disunion 
movement  (1850),  74,  79,  87;  con- 
sidered by  disunionists  (1852-60), 
1  8  1,  1  88,  235-36;  views  on  economic 
effects  of  secession,  184-85;  sell  slaves, 
21  1  ;  fears  for  slavery  in,  217;  against 
reopening  foreign  slave  trade,  224; 
secession  delayed,  233-34;  views  of 
causes  of  secession  of  cotton  states, 
249-52;  watch  early  economic  policies 
of  Confederacy,  257,  259;  cotton 
states'  attitude  toward  secession  of, 
268;  fear  revival  of  foreign  slave  trade, 
270-72,  281;  considerations  affecting 
decision  as  to  secession,  273-88,  291; 
secessionists  identified,  283-88;  see 
also  Virginia,  Kentucky,  etc. 

Boyce,  W.  W.,  Nullifier  and  coopera- 
tionist  (1850),  89;  for  free  trade  and 
direct  taxation,  139,  141,  163-64 

Brown,  Joseph  E.,  secessionist  per  se, 
73;  on  causes  of  secession,  247;  on  di- 
rect trade,  256;  on  export  taxes,  260 

Burwell,  William,  on  internal  improve- 
ments, 127;  on  Norfolk,  130 

Butler,  A.  P.,  Nullifier  and  cooperation- 
ist  (1850)  89;  on  tariff,  163 

Calhoun,  A.  P.,  I43n.,  on  tariff,  165; 


Calhoun,  John  C.,  and  direct  trade  with 
Europe,  17,  29;  on  state  of  agricul- 
ture, 34;  opposes  Bluffton  movement, 
38-39;  on  Tariff  of  1842,  39;  on  un- 
equal operation  of  Federal  govern- 
ment, 67,  82;  and  disunion  movement 
(1850),  55,  72-74,  82,  90-92;  in  South- 
western Convention,  124-25;  candi- 
date for  nomination  for  president, 
152;  and  manufactures,  154;  on  com- 
mercial retaliation  against  North,  157 

Capital,  deficiency  of  in  South,  com- 
mercial dependence  on  North  as  cause, 
20-22,  8  1,  94,  190-91;  unequal  oper- 


315 


3l6     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 840-1861    [316 


ation  of  Federal  government  as  cause, 
22,  67,  80  ff.,  182;  as  cause  of  com- 
mercial dependence,  22-23,  26,  105; 
industrial  dependence  as  cause,  41, 
48-49,  190-191;  handicaps  develop- 
ment of  manufactures,  45-46,  63,  183; 
cotton  manufactures  to  supply,  49; 
direct  trade  with  Europe  to  supply, 
99  ff.,  183,  184;  financial  depen- 
dence on  North,  100-7;  handicaps  all 
enterprises,  104;  capital  beginning  to 
accumulate,  204-5;  agriculture  and 
railroads  absorb,  226;  Northern  and 
European  capital  coming,  229,  293; 
see  also  banks  and  credits 

Charleston,  direct  trade  convention 
(I839),  17  ff.;  imports,  19;  conduct  of 
commerce,  25;  yellow  fever,  25n.;  and 
Cincinnati  railroad,  29-30;  progress 
and  aspirations,  97;  character  of 
population,  100;  as  distributing  cen- 
ter, no;  harbor  improvement,  113; 
steamship  lines  and  projects,  118, 
256;  Southern  Commercial  Conven- 
tion, 133-36;  aid  to  railroads,  172; 
and  secession,  239,  251;  see  also  cities 
and  towns 

Charleston  Mercury ,  and  Bluffton  move- 
ment, 38,  70;  disunion  organ,  73,  179; 
on  Southern  Commercial  Conven- 
tion, 150;  for  disunion,  184,  193;  de- 
plores slave  trade  agitation,  216;  on 
causes  of  secession,  247;  on  Confeder- 
ate Constitution,  262;  against  pro- 
hibition of  slave  trade,  271 

Cheves,  Langdon,  approves  Bluffton 
movement,  38;  for  disunion,  69,  70; 
speech  in  Nashville  Convention,  75n.; 
cooperationist  (1850),  89 

Christy,  David,  Cotton  Is  King,  208,  209 

Cities  and  towns  in  South,  few  and 
small,  12,  296;  seaports  languishing 
and  dependent,  15,  20;  natural  ad- 
vantages, 25,  112;  aspirations,  96-98; 
Northerners  and  foreigners  in,  99- 
100;  as  distributing  centers,  no-n; 
anticipated  effects  of  secession  on, 
183,  191,  197;  slave  populations  de- 
clining, 21 1 ;  labor  troubles,  53,  219; 
and  secession,  239-43,  passim,  251, 
284-85;  see  also  Charleston,  New 
Orleans,  etc. 

Civil  War,  secessionist  anticipations, 
181,  187,  188-89,  208,  235;  affects 
economic  policies  of  the  Confederacy, 
255>  259  ff->  and  secession  of  border 
states,  282-83,  29J?  n°t  inevitable, 
294 


Clay,  C.  C.,  on  fishing  bounties  and 
other  protective  legislation,  164;  dis- 
unionist  member  of  Congress,  180 

Clingman,  Thomas  L.,  on  value  of 
Union  (1850),  82;  on  benefits  of 
secession,  252,  273 

Cobb,  Howell,  opposes  secession  of 
Georgia  (1850),  73,  77,  89;  Secretary 
of  Treasury,  on  tariff,  165;  on  foreign 
slave  trade,  215;  and  secession,  240; 
and  tariff  policy  of  Confederacy,  265 

Commerce  of  South,  external,  amount 
of  foreign,  12,  15,  295;  amount  of 
foreign  goods  consumed,  107-10; 
extent  of,  with  North  and  West,  108- 
9;  little  internal  commerce,  in;  with 
West,  201-3;  see  ah°  commercial  de- 
pendence, North,  and  West 

Commercial  dependence  of  South,  de- 
gree and  evils  of,  12,  15-16,  19-22,  32, 
81,  94-104,  127,  128,  190,  207,  208, 
290;  causes  analyzed,  22-25,  IO5>  107- 
113,  292;  remedies  proposed  in  direct 
trade  conventions,  25-30;  secession 
as  remedy,  80,  83,  183-85,  188,  191- 
92, 194-95, 197,  293;  various  remedies, 
113;  projects  for  steamship  lines  to 
Europe,  114-22;  considered  in  South- 
ern  Commercial  Convention,  130-34, 
138-39.  i4J-42>  H7>  149;  discrimina-, 
tory  taxation  as  remedy,  156-61,  167- 
72,  176-78;  commercial  non-inter- 
course with  North  as  remedy,  157- 
58>  175-76;  patronage  of  direct  im- 
porters as  remedy,  173-75;  expecta- 
tions of  commercial  progress  as  cause 
for  secession,  237,  248-49,  251-54, 
256,  263,  275-76;  see  also  Confederate 
States,  direct  trade  conventions,  ship- 
ping and  shipbuilding 

Compromise  of  1850,  debated,  72-74; 
denounced  in  Nashville  Convention, 
75;  contests  over  acceptance,  76-78; 
aggravates  sectionalism,  128 

Confederate  States  of  America,  tariff 
and  commercial  policies  considered  by 
disunionists,  181, 183-85,  188-89,  243; 
formulated,  257-67  (see  tariff  policy 
of  Confederacy);  foreign  relations 
considered  by  disunionists,  181,  185, 
189,  194,  208,  243;  policy  formulated, 
259,  261,  263-67;  expansion  antici- 
pated, 181-82,  250-51,  253;  navigation 
of  Mississippi  considered  by  disunion- 
ists, 181,  185,  189;  policy  formulated, 
258-59,  261,  280;  admission  of  West- 
ern States  considered,  185-86,  189, 
268;  foreign  slave  trade  policy  con- 


INDEX 


317 


sidered  by  disunionists,  181-82,  270- 
72;  Confederacy  organized,  233; 
Provisional  Constitution,  233,  260, 
271,  274;  Permanent  Constitution, 
233,  261,  269,  271,  274,  281;  naviga- 
tion laws  of,  261. 

Congress  of  United  States,  attempts 
compromise  to  save  Union,  231,  233; 
House  of  Representatives  on  causes 
of  secession,  252 

Corporations,  opposition  to,  42, 154 

Cotton,  prices,  26,  33-35,  60,  102,  199, 
201 ;  overproduction  of,  26,  36  ff.,  125, 
204;  depression  in  the  industry,  33 
ff.;  factorage  system,  101;  crop,  199, 
203;  prosperity  of  the  industry,  199- 
225;  labor  shortage  in,  210-13;  see 
also  manufactures 

Cotton  Is  King,  2o8n.,  209;  cotton  is 
king  argument,  207-10,  266 

Cotton  planters'  conventions,  37,  94, 
204 

Crawford,  Geo.  W.,  Governor  of 
Georgia,  on  encouraging  manufac- 
tures, 42,  154 

Credits,  long,  system  of  in  South,  16, 
23,  101,  105-6;  cause  of  commercial 
dependence,  23-24;  handicaps  cotton 
manufacturers,  63-64;  handicaps  im- 
porters, 105;  signs  of  breaking  away 
from,  205 

Crittenden,  J.  J.,  on  necessity  of  Union, 
87;  and  secession,  279 

Davis,  Jefferson,  leader  Southern  Rights 
Party  in  Mississippi,  77;  and  surveys 
for  Pacific  railroad,  135;  on  Tariff  of 
1857,  166;  appeal  to  Northern  busi- 
ness interests,  209;  on  revival  of  slave 
trade,  217;  on  causes  of  secession, 
246;  and  tariff  and  foreign  policies  of 
Confederacy,  264,  265-67;  on  ad- 
mitting non-slaveholding  states  to 
Confederacy,  269 

Dawson,  Senator  Wm.  C.,  and  origin 
of  Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
129;  presides  in,  129,  131,  133;  op- 
poses Pike's  plan  for  Pacific  railroad, 

135 

DeBow,  J.  D.  B.,  on  political  aspects  of 
diversification  of  Southern  industry, 
56;  objects  to  disunionists'  doctrines, 
78;  on  warehousing  system,  93;  in- 
terest in  direct  trade,  94;  and  origin 
of  Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
128;  on  objects  of,  134;  presides,  140; 
disunionist,  140,  180;  chairman  com- 
mittee, Commercial  Convention,  147; 


on  Tariff  of  1857,  163;  and  Southern 
advertising,  175;  reviews  Southern 
Wealth  and  Northern  Profits,  192;  and 
revival  of  slave  trade,  214,  215;  on 
white  labor  in  cotton  industry,  221; 
on  immigration,  221;  and  causes  of 
secession,  247;  on  effects  of  seces- 
sion, 249,  267;  characterized,  293 

DeBow's  Review,  for  development  of 
manufactures,  43;  disunionist  teach- 
ings, 1 80,  193,  237;  on  effects  of  se- 
cession, 257,  267;  on  revenue  clause  of 
Confederate  Constitution,  262;  char- 
acterized, 293 

Democratic  party  in  South,  two  wings, 
66-67,  88-92;  attitude  toward  se- 
cession (1850),  76-77,  89-92;  and 
diversification  of  industry,  87;  and 
Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
147;  attitude  on  tariff,  151-54,  161, 
163,  165-66;  and  corporations,  154- 
55;  and  discriminatory  taxation,  159, 
167;  and  Federal  protective  legisla- 
tion, 163-64;  and  state  aid  to  internal 
improvements,  172-73;  Southern 
Rights  wing  in  ascendancy,  179;  at- 
titude towards  secession  (i  860-61), 
238-43,  284-86 

Devereaux,  Thomas  P.,  on  slavery  and 
white  labor,  53,  54 

Direct  trade  conventions  of  1837-39, 
origin  and  objects,  13,  16-18,  30; 
composition  and  temper,  17-18;  pub- 
lic interest  in,  17  f.,  31;  proceedings, 
19-30;  slavery  and  disunion  little 
consideration,  30-31;  results,  32;  pro- 
ceedings republished,  94 

Direct  trade  convention,  at  Old  Point 
Comfort  (1850),  115;  (1857),  120; 
at  Richmond  (1851),  116;  at  Bristol, 
Va.,  120 

Discriminatory  taxation,  see  taxation 

Disunion  movement,  see  secession  move- 
ment 

Dred  Scott  Decision,  empty  victory 
without  slave  trade,  217 

Education  and  culture  in  South,  back- 
wardness, 13,  147;  effect  of  manu- 
facturing on,  50;  discussed  in  South- 
ern Commercial  Convention,  132-33, 
142,  147,  158;  pleas  for  home  patron- 
age, 173;  George  Fitzhugh's  interest 
in,  176 

Elmore,  F.  H.,  report  on  direct  trade, 
1 8,  25;  opposes  Bluffton  movement, 
38;  and  disunionist  movement,  73 


3l8      ECONOMIC  ASPECTSOF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1840-1861    [318 


Federal  government,  see  internal  im- 
provements and  taxation  and  dis- 
bursements 

Financial  dependence  of  South,  100-7; 
see  also  capital  and  banks 

Fisher,  Ellwood,  compares  North  and 
South,  205 

Fitzhugh,  George,  doctrines,  176-78; 
praises  agriculture,  206;  on  power  of 
cotton,  208 

Floyd,  John  B.,  proposes  discrimina- 
tory taxation  of  Northern  goods,  159- 
60,  1 68 

Foote,  Henry  S.,  Unionist  leader,  77; 
denounces  Rhett's  disunion  speech, 
83;  on  value  of  Union,  86;  in  Southern 
Commercial  Convention,  131;  op- 
poses slave  trade,  2i8n. 

Forsyth,  John,  compares  North  and 
South,  47;  describes  Mobile,  98;  on 
effects  of  secession,  197 

Gadsden  Purchase  and  Pacific  railroad, 
135-36 

Garnett,  M.  R.  H.,  The  Union,  Past  and 
Future,  etc.,  79-81;  Calhoun  Demo- 
crat, 92 

Georgia,  progress  of  cotton  manufac- 
tures, 41, 44,  226;  disunion  movement 
(1849-50),  73,  75,  76;  question  of  cor- 
poration charters,  154;  question  of 
discriminatory  taxation,  160,  167- 
68;  state  aid  to  railroads,  172;  con- 
dition of  agriculture,  203;  secession, 
232,  238-40,  245;  direct  trade  pro- 
jects, 256;  tariff  sentiment,  261; 
against  foreign  slave  trade,  271 

Gregg,  William,  advocates  establish- 
ment of  cotton  manufactures,  40-42, 
45,  46;  Essays  on  Domestic  Industry, 
40-41;  manufacturer,  41,  42;  on  poor 
whites,  52,  223;  on  progress  of  cot- 
ton manufactures,  58,  6 in.;  on  evils 
of  commercial  dependence,  95;  on 
Charleston  as  distributing  center, 
no;  opposes  state  aid  to  manufac- 
tures, 155;  tariff  man,  166;  on  patron- 
age to  home  industries,  174;  refutes 
disunionist  arguments,  194;  on 
foreign  slave  trade,  223 

Hamilton,  Gen.  James,  17;  opposes 
Bluffton  movement,  70;  on  disunion- 
ist sentiment  in  South  (1850),  86; 
cooperationist  in  South  Carolina,  89 

Hammond,  J.  H.,  17;  advocates  diver- 
sification of  industry,  35,  49,  50,  155; 


and  Bluffton  movement,  36,  38-39; 
compares  North  and  South,  47;  on 
poor  whites,  52;  ready  for  secession, 
73;  _  cooperationist  (1850),  89;  on 
panic  of  1857,  103,  1040.;  on  Southern 
commerce,  108;  on  Charleston's 
commerce,  113;  "Plan  of  State  Ac- 
tion," 161;  reviews  Fisher's  pamphlet, 
206 

Harris,  W.  P.,  on  tariff  policy  of  Con- 
federacy, 263 

Hayne,  Robert  Y.,  in  direct  trade  con- 
ventions, 17;  reports  on  direct  trade, 
1 8,  21;  on  long  credits,  23;  starts  son 
in  importing  business,  28 

Henderson,  Gen.  John  B.,  of  Missouri, 
on  causes  of  secession,  251 

Hicks,  Governor  of  Maryland,  on  causes 
of  secession,  250,  282 

Hilliard,  Henry  W.,  on  value  of  Union, 
86;  in  Southern  Commercial  Conven- 
tion, 143;  appeals  to  Northern  busi- 
ness interests,  209;  against  foreign 
slave  trade,  224;  and  secession  of 
Alabama,  241 

Houston,  Sam,  Governor  of  Texas, 
opposes  secession,  232 

Hunter,  R.  M.  T.,  Calhoun  Democrat, 
Senator,  91;  and  Tariff  of  1857,  163; 
attacks  ship  subsidies,  164;  appeals  to 
Northern  business  interests,  209;  on 
tariff  and  commercial  policies  of  Con- 
federacy, 264;  on  effects  of  secession 
on  border  states,  273 

Immigration,  mostly  to  non-slavehold- 
ing  states,  12;  manufactures  would  at- 
tract, 57;  attitude  of  South,  57  f., 
213,  220-21,  223;  not  discussed  in 
Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
146;  considered  by  disunionists,  181; 
immigrants  unfriendly  to  slavery,  220 

Industrial  dependence  of  South,  see 
manufactures 

Internal  improvements,  Federal  aid  to, 
attitude  of  South,  112-13,  115,  116- 
17;  discussed  in  Southwestern  Con- 
vention, 124-26;  in  Chicago  Rivers 
and  Harbors  Convention,  125-26; 
requested  for  Pacific  railroad,  126, 
133,  148;  considered  by  Southern 
Commercial  Convention,  132,  133, 
142,  147,  148,  172;  prohibited  by 
Confederate  Constitution,  261 

Iverson,  Alfred,  of  Georgia,  disunionist 
member  of  Congress,  180;  on  tariff 
policy  of  Confederacy,  259 


319] 


INDEX 


319 


James,  Charles  T.,  of  Rhode  Island,  in- 
terest in  cotton  manufactures  in 
South  and  West,  43,  45-46,  226;  on 
poor  whites,  52 

Johnson,  Andrew,  on  causes  of  secession, 
250,  281,  287 

Jones,  John  A.,  Southern  Rights  Demo- 
crat, 90;  free  trader,  165;  on  slave 
trade,  216 

Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  136,  179 

Kansas  troubles,  considered  in  Southern 
Commercial  Convention,  140;  Eng- 
lish bill,  165,  181;  fan  sectionalism, 
179;  Kansas  question  and  foreign 
slave  trade,  217 

Kennedy,  John  P.,  on  causes  of  seces- 
sion, 250;  opposes  secession  of  Mary- 
land, 275-77 

Kentucky,  doesn  t  calculate  value  of 
Union  (1850),  87;  secession  defeated, 
233;  considerations  affecting  de- 
cision against  secession,  279-80,  282- 
83,  286;  see  also  border  states 

Kettell,  T.  P.,  on  manufactures  in 
South,  61;  estimates  value  of  Union 
to  North,  81-82,  190-91;  quoted  in 
South,  8 1,  191-92;  refuted,  254 

King,  Thomas  Butler,  17;  agent  of 
Georgia  to  Europe,  256 

Labor,  in  manufactures,^!-^,  45,  51- 
55,  62,  2ic,  222;  prejudice  against 
manual,  51;  attitude  of  laboring  class 
toward  slavery  and  slaveholders,  53- 
54,  218-20,  223,  290;  shortage  of  in 
cotton  and  sugar  industries,  210- 
13,  220-22;  see  also  poor  whites, 
slavery,  slave  trade 

Lamar,  L.  Q.  C.,  on  secessionists,  238 

Letcher,  John,  Governor  of  Virginia, 
233;  on  causes  of  secession,  249 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  234,  235,  239,  249, 
273;  see  also  presidential  elections 

London,  D.  H.,  for  discriminatory  taxes 
on  indirect  imports,  117,  167 

Louisiana,  sentiment  for  Union  (1850), 
74,  87;  for  tariff,  151,  166,  259,  261; 
state  aid  to  railroads,  172;  sugar  in- 
dustry, 200;  condition  of  agriculture, 
203;  legislature  considers  revival  of 
slave  trade,  215-16,  225;  secession, 
232,  242;  and  Confederate  aid  to  in- 
ternal improvements,  262;  and  Con- 
federate prohibition  of  foreign  slave 
trade,  271 


Lumbering  in  South,  considered  in 
Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
133,  147;  value  of,  228-29 

Lumpkin,  Joseph  H.,  on  cotton  manu- 
factures in  South,  60;  secessionist  per 
se,  73;  Calhoun  Democrat,  90 

Lyon,  James,  remarks  as  president  of 
Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
138-39 

McDonald,  A.  G.,  for  secession  of 
Georgia,  73,  77;  Calhoun  Democrat, 
90 

McDuffie,  George,  in  direct  trade  con- 
ventions, 17;  writes  address  in  be- 
half of,  1 8;  on  direct  trade,  21,  28n.; 
on  long  credits  system,  23;  alludes  to 
secession,  31;  supports  Bluffton  move- 
ment, 38;  on  Tariff  of  1842,  39;  views 
on  tariff  and  secession,  68-69;  on  state 
protection  to  industry,  157 

Magoffin,  Governor  of  Kentucky,  and 
secession,  233,  280 

Mallory,  Francis,  report  in  Richmond 
Direct  Trade  Convention  (1838),  19 
ff. 

Mann,  A.  Dudley,  plan  for  "Steam 
Ferry,"  119-20,  139,  141,  257;  Con- 
federate commissioner  to  Europe, 
257, 264-66 

Manufactures  in  South,  extent  and 
growth,  12,  33,  42,  44,  58-59,  226-30; 
growth  of  cotton,  33,  42,  44,  58-59, 
226,  298;  profits  of  cotton,  33,  43,  45, 
60-6 1 ;  beginning  of  movement  to 
develop  cotton  and  other,  35-40; 
development  of  movement,  40-46, 127; 
evils  of  dependence  on  North  de- 
picted, 40-41,  46-49,  290;  benefits  of 
manufactures,  49-58;  opposition,  50- 
54,  223,  290;  relation  of  movement  to 
diversify  industry  to  sectional  quar- 
rels, 55-58;  movement  ends,  58-59; 
causes  for  failure,  59-64,  105,  174; 
manufactures  discussed  in  Southern 
Commercial  Convention,  125,  131- 
33,  147;  people  awake  to  need,  149; 
attitude  of  anti-tariff  men,  154-56; 
discriminatory  taxation  of  Northern 
goods  proposed  to  encourage,  156-61, 
167-72,  176-78;  commercial  non- 
intercourse  proposed  to  encourage, 
I57-5^>  175-76;  patronage  of  home  in- 
dustries urged,_63,  ^173-75,  255;  ad- 
vocates of  diversification  become 
disunionists,  182,  291;  disunion  ex- 


32O      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-l86l    [320 


pected  to  promote,  183-85,  188,  191- 
92,  194-95,  293;  manufacturers  re- 
assured by  disunionists,  194;  argu- 
ments of  diversificationists  refuted, 
206-10;  diversification  and  foreign 
slave  trade,  213,  222-23;  deficiency  of 
capital  the  great  obstacle,  222;  ex- 
pectations of  industrial  independence 
as  cause  for  secession,  249,  273-75, 
291;  measures  after  secession  to  en- 
courage manufactures,  255;  cotton 
manufactures  would  have  come,  293 

Marketing  system  in  South;  see  credits 
and  cotton  factorage 

Maryland,  depression  of  manufactures, 
6on.;  secession  defeated,  233;  con- 
siderations affecting  decision  for 
Union,  274  f.,  277,  282-83,  286 

Mason,  James  M,,  not  disunionist  -per 
se  (1850),  84;  Senator,  Calhoun 
Democrat,  91;  and  steamship  line, 
Norfolk  to  Antwerp,  116;  commis- 
sioner to  Europe,  264 

Mason,  John  Y.,  and  steamship  line  to 
Europe,  117 

Maury,  M.  F.,  on  warehousing  system, 
94n.;  on  Southern  merchants,  99; 
interest  in  navigation  of  Amazon,  118 
f.;  in  Southern  Commercial  Conven- 
tion, 130,  135 

Meade,  R.  K.,  in  Old  Point  Comfort 
Convention,  115;  and  steamship  line 
to  Europe,  116 

Memminger,  C.  G.,  17;  on  class  con- 
sciousness of  white  labor,  53-54;  co- 
operationist  (1850),  89;  "Declaration 
of  Immediate  Causes"  of  secession  of 
South  Carolina,  243-44 

Memphis,  Southwestern  Convention, 
124-26;  Pacific  Railroad  Convention, 
126;  Southern  Commercial  Conven- 
tion, 131-33 

Mercantile  Convention,  Richmond,  116 

Merchants  and  Planters  Convention, 
Macon,  247,  257;  on  Confederate 
tariff  and  commercial  policies,  266 

Merchants  in  South,  prejudice  against 
mercantile  business,  24,  28;  lack  of 
permanent  native  class  of,  99-100 

Miles,  Wm.  Porcher,  disunionist  in  Con- 
gress, 1 80;  on  tariff  policy  of  Confed- 
eracy, 263 

Millson,  John  S.,  report  in  Norfolk  Di- 
rect Trade  Convention,  19 

Mining  in  South,  progress,  12,  226; 
mineral  surveys,  42,  170;  discussed  in 
Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
147,  167;  no  class  to  secure  fostering 


legislation,  171;  fields  about  to  be 
opened,  229,  293 

Mississippi,  State,  of,  secession  senti- 
ment, 73-75;  secession  defeated 
(1850),  77;  discriminatory  taxation 
discussed,  160;  aid  to  railroads,  172; 
condition  of  agriculture,  202-3;  con- 
siders revival  of  slave  trade,  214-15, 
224,  270;  hostility  of  white  labor  to 
slavery,  219;  secession,  242,  245 

Mississippi  river,  improvement  of  navi- 
gation demanded,  112;  as  outlet  for 
Western  commerce,  185,  202;  ques- 
tion of  navigation  considered  by  dis- 
unionists, 1 8 1,  185,  189;  policy  of 
Confederacy  formulated,  258-59,  261, 
280 

Missouri,  secession  defeated,  233;  con- 
siderations affecting  decision  for 
Union,  279-80,  282-83, 286 

Mobile,  aspirations,  98;  business  con- 
trolled by  Northern  men,  100;  harbor 
of,  H2;  aid  to  Mobile  and  Ohio  rail- 
road, 173;  and  secession,  241,  251 

Montgomery  Daily  Confederation,  on 
Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
143,  I44n.;  on  tariff,  165;  Union  not 
detrimental  to  South,  193;  opposes 
diversification  of  industry,  207 

Nashville  Convention,  71,  128;  origin, 
73-74;  objects  and  composition,  74- 
75,  83n.;  proceedings,  75-76;  con- 
siders commercial  retaliation,  157-58 

National  Intelligencer,  opposes  discrimi- 

'  natory  taxation,  160;  on  causes  of 
secession,  250 

New  England,  attitude  toward  South- 
ern cotton  manufactures,  45;  depres- 
sion of  cotton  manufactures,  60-6 1; 
methods  of  meeting  Southern  com- 
petition, 62-63 

New  Orleans,  exports  and  imports,  15; 
character  of  population,  31,  99;  Union 
sentiment,  87;  and  warehousing  sys- 
tem, 93;  awakens  to  need  of  railroads, 
97;  panic  of  1857,  102-3;  yellow  fever, 
H2n.;  demands  improvement  of 
Mississippi  river,  112;  railroad  con- 
ventions, 127;  jealous  of  Baltimore, 
130;  interest  in  railroad  across  Te- 
huantepec,  132;  Southern  Commer- 
cial Convention,  136-38;  attitude  of 
South  toward,  137;  and  Western 
trade  and  secession,  185,  189;  West- 
ern commerce  of,  202;  hostility  of 
white  laborers  to  slaves,  219;  and 


321] 


INDEX 


321 


secession,  243,  251;  project  for  steam- 
ship line  to  Europe,  256 

New  Orleans  Delta,  on  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention,  132,  138;  dis- 
unionist,  180 

New  Orleans  Picayune,  on  panic  of 
1857,  103;  on  Southern  Commercial 
Convention,  149;  Union  not  detrimen- 
tal to  South,  192;  against  reviving 
slave  trade,  223;  on  Southern  prog- 
ress, 230 

Newton,  Willoughby,  Calhoun  Demo- 
crat, 92;  on  economic  benefits  of 
secession,  184;  on  slavery  and  se- 
cession, 281 

New  York  City,  importance  of  South- 
ern trade,  21;  financial  concentration, 
101;  finances  movement  of  Southern 
staples,  101  f.;  advantages  over 
Southern  cities,  no  ff.;  steamship 
lines,  114,  117,  122;  Southern  ex- 
pectations of  effect  of  secession  on, 
1 88,  249 

New  York  Herald,  on  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention,  144;  on  econo- 
mic effects  of  secession,  192;  repre- 
sents business  interests,  friendly  to 
South,  209;  on  causes  of  secession, 

254 

New  York  Times,  on  causes  of  secession, 
253;  opposes  Morrill  Tariff,  264 

Non-intercourse  with  North  discussed, 
157-58,  175-76 

Non-slaveholding  whites,  attitude 
toward  slavery  and  slaveholders,  u, 
53-54,  218-20,  223,  290;  attitude 
toward  secession,  239-43,  283-88; 
see  also  labor  and  poor  whites 

Norfolk,  direct  trade  convention,  18; 
advantages  and  aspirations,  96;  yel- 
low fever,  H2n.;  proposed  steamship 
lines,  116  ff.;  and  secession,  275,  285 

North,  advantages  of  union  with  South, 
20  ff.,  46,  48-49,  80  fF.,  94-96,  104,  115, 
182,  1 88,  190-91,  196-97,  207-10; 
North  and  South  compared,  24,  33, 
47-49,  205-6,  227-29;  imports  from 
South,  12,  108,  190;  exports  to  South, 
12,  24,  109,  190;  commercial  policy 
of  Confederacy  toward  North  con- 
sidered by  disunionists,  181,  183-84; 
formulated,  258-59,  261,  263,  265-67; 
relations  of  East  and  West  and  East 
and  South  compared,  186,  202;  effects 
of  secession  on  North  considered, 
1 88,  190-92,  194,  208,  235,  248-49, 
253;  class  of  Northerners  encourage 
disunionists,  189-92;  Northern  opin- 


ions of  disunionist  sentiment  in 
South,  195-98;  Northern  views  of 
causes  of  secession,  252-54;  see  also 
capital,  commerce,  manufactures, 
tariff 

North  Carolina,  little  interest  in  direct 
trade  in  18305,  31;  agricultural  de- 
pression, 34;  growth  of  cotton  manu- 
factures, 41,  44,  227;  disunion  senti- 
ment, 73,  74,  79n.;  disunion  argu- 
ments refuted,  88;  people  regret  com- 
mercial dependence  on  Virginia  and 
South  Carolina,  97;  tariff  and  dis- 
criminatory taxation  questions,  161- 
62;  state  aid  to  railroad,  172-73; 
agricultural  conditions,  203;  ad  valo- 
rem issue,  219,  287;  sectionalism,  220, 
287;  secession  defeated,  233;  consider- 
ations affecting  final  decision  for 
secession,  273-75,  276,  283n.,  284, 
287 

Northerners  and  foreigners  in  South, 
as  merchants,  factors,  etc.,  19,  28, 
198;  in  New  Orleans  and  Mobile,  31; 
attitude  toward  slavery,  57,  220; 
merchants  in  cities  and  towns,  99-100 

Nullifiers,  in  direct  trade  conventions, 
17;  on  causes  of  commercial  de- 
pendence, 22;  origin,  65;  party  affili- 
ations, 66;  political  principles  67-68; 
become  disunionists,  68-72,  88-92; 
not  satisfied  by  Tariff  of  1846,  70, 
162;  for  free  trade  and  direct  taxa- 
tion, 163-65;  see  also  Democratic 
party 

Olmsted,  F.  L.,  on  Southern  imports, 
108;  on  domestic  slave  trade,  211; 
and  white  labor  in  cotton  industry, 
221 

Pacific  railroad,  14,  94,  97,  290,  293; 
conventions  at  Memphis,  St.  Louis, 
and  Philadelphia,  126;  becomes  sec- 
tional issue,  127,  135;  considered  in 
Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
130,  132-36,  138,  139,  148;  and  rail- 
road across  Tehuantepec,  132;  and 
Gadsden  Purchase,  135;  disunionists 
consider,  181;  Texas  interested,  262; 
and  secession  in  Missouri,  280 

Panic,  of  1837,  16;  specie  payments  sus- 
pended, 27;  general  stagnation  of 
business,  30,  93;  in  Southwest,  31; 
effects  of  panic  of  1857,  102-4,  J99» 
South  weathers  better  than  North, 
205 


322      ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM-,  1 840-l86l    [322 


Patronage  of  home  manufacturers  and 
merchants  urged,  27  f.,  63,  113,  142, 
173-75,  255 

Pettigru,  J.  J.,  Unionist  in  South  Caro- 
lina (1850),  89;  opposes  foreign  slave 
trade,  217-18,  222,  224 

Pike,  Albert,  plan  for  Pacific  railroad, 
134-36,  138,  139 

Polk,  James  K.,  Kane  Letter,  38,  162; 
vetoes  Rivers  and  Harbors  bill,  125 

Poor  whites,  employment  in  cotton  fac- 
tories considered,  41,  42,  52-54;  tried, 
42,  62;  character  and  numbers,  51-52; 
responsibility  of  slavery  for,  53,  198, 
223,  290;  consumed  few  imports,  107; 
production  of  cotton  by  considered, 
212,  221 

Population  of  South,  sparsity,  13,  292; 
growing  disparity  in  favor  of  North, 
15,  '6,  55,  57,  98,  128,  217,  229,  289; 
increase,  203,  211 

Presidential  elections,  of  1856,  138,  179; 
of  1860,  181,  231,  234-36,  238 

Preston,  Wm.  Ballard,  to  Europe  in  in- 
terest of  direct  trade,  120;  on  Virginia 
as  slave  selling  state,  224 

Progress  of  Slavery,  by  Weston,  197-98 

Pryor,  Roger  A.,  on  fishing  bounties, 
164;  disunionist  in  Congress,  180; 
opposes  revival  of  slave  trade,  218, 
224 

Public  opinion,  conditions  of  formation 
in  South,  293-94;  m  North,  294 

Quitman,  John  A.,  leader  Southern 
Rights  Party  in  Mississippi,  77;  Nulli- 
fier,  91;  in  Southern  Commercial  Con- 
vention, 131,  148;  disunionist  in 
Congress,  180 

Railroads  in  South,  anticipated  ad- 
vantages from  railroads  to  West,  29, 
115,  125,  130,  185,  269,  290;  projects 
for  and  direct  trade,  29,  114;  being 
rapidly  built,  30,  94;  New  Orleans 
roads,  97,  194;  economically  built, 
102,  225;  building  handicapped  by 
lack  of  capital,  104;  traffic  light,  in, 
225;  Virginia  and  Tennessee,  114, 
276;  Chesapeake  and  Ohio,  115,  277; 
projects  considered  in  Southwestern 
Convention,  125;  in  New  Orleans 
railroad  conventions,  127;  in  South- 
ern Commercial  Convention,  132, 
147;  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  130,  277; 
state  aid,  172-73;  railroads  to  West 
and  secession,  185,  269;  progress,  203, 
225-26,  229;  see  also  Pacific  railroad 


Republicans,  Southern  attitude,  138, 
179,  181,  234;  and  economics  of 
slavery,  196-98;  attitude  toward  dis- 
union movement,  196-98;  on  causes 
of  secession,  252-53 

Retaliation,  commercial,  against  North, 
see  non-intercourse  and  taxation,  dis- 
criminatory 

Rhett,  R.  B.,  leads  Bluffton  movement, 
38;  on  Tariff  of  1842,  39;  disunion 
speech  in  Senate,  83-84,  244;  leads 
separate-actionists  (1850-52),  89;  on 
state  protection  of  industry,  156; 
opposes  slave  trade  agitation,  2i6n.; 
"Address  of  the  People  of  South 
Carolina,"  243-44;  and  revenue  pro- 
visions of  Confederate  Constitution, 
261;  and  tariff  and  foreign  policies 
of  Confederacy,  265 

Richmond,  direct  trade  convention,  18; 
aspirations,  96;  mercantile  conven- 
tion, 116-17;  ships  flour  to  Rio  de 
Janeiro,  117;  Southern  Commercial 
Convention,  137-38;  industrial  town, 
229;  and  secession,  275,  285 

Richmond  Enquirer,  on  diversification 
of  industry,  49,  155;  on  Southern 
Commercial  Convention,  148;  dis- 
criminatory taxation,  159;  disunion- 
ist organ,  1 80 

Richmond  Whig,  42;  on  disunionism  in 
South  Carolina  (1850),  85-86;  wavers 
on  tariff,  162 

Rivers  and  Harbors  Convention  (Chi- 
cago)i  125-26 

Robb,  James,  refutes  disunionist  argu- 
ments, 194 

Ruffin,  Edmund,  18;  Calhoun  Demo- 
crat, 92;  in  Southern  Commercial 
Convention,  143;  on  economic  bene- 
fits of  secession,  187-89 

Russell,  Robert,  on  Southern  opinion, 
108;  on  plantation  economy,  202; 
on  white  labor  in  cotton  industry, 
221;  on  Southern  attitude  toward 
English  opinion,  224 

St.  Louis,  Pacific  railroad  convention, 
126;  and  secession,  251,  276,  279,  280, 
286 

Savannah,  aspirations,  97;  Northerners 
and  foreigners,  100;  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention,  138-40;  direct 
trade  projects,  256 

Savannah  Daily  Republican,  on  South- 
ern Commercial  Convention,  138;  and 
value  of  Union,  192;  opposes  revival 
of  slave  trade,  214 


323] 


INDEX 


323 


Seabrook,  W.  B.,  Governor  of  South 
Carolina,  and  secession  movement, 
73-74;  and  state  aid  to  manufactures, 
155,  161 

Secession  movement,  attitude  of  diver- 
sificationists,  58;  disunionist  views  of 
economic  value  of  Union,  68-69,  72; 
Bluffton  movement  and,  69-70; 
growth  of  disunion  sentiment,  70-73; 
Nashville  Convention  and,  73-76; 
contests  over  acceptance  of  compro- 
mise of  1850,  76-77;  disunionist  agru- 
ments,  77-88;  secessionists  (in  1850) 
identified,  88-92;  disunionists  in 
Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
137-44.  149-50.  179;  George  Fitzhugh 
and,  177;  growth  of  disunion  senti- 
ment, 179;  methods  of  propagating, 
1 80;  issue  sought,  181;  every  aspect 
considered,  181-82;  various  motives, 
182;  economic  arguments  for  seces- 
sion, 182-89,  291,  293;  class  of  North- 
ern writers  encourages  disunionism, 
189-92;  secessionists  refuted  in  South, 
192-95;  Northern  opinions  of  move- 
ment, 195-98;  secessionists  agitate 
slave  trade  question,  213-14,  216, 
270;  secession  of  cotton  states,  231- 
33;  secession  delayed  in  border  states, 
233;  arguments  of  secessionists,  234- 
35,  236-38;  of  Unionists,  235-36,  237; 
secessionists  identified,  238-43;  state- 
ments of  causes,  243-48;  expecta- 
tions of  economic  benefits,  248-49; 
border  state  views  of  causes,  249-52; 
Northern  views,  252-54;  causes  as 
shown  by  economic  policies  of  Con- 
federacy, 255-70;  desire  to  reopen 
slave  trade  not  the  cause,  270-72; 
considerations  affecting  decision  of 
border  states,  273-88,  291;  secession- 
ists identified  in,  283-86 

Sectionialism,  in  Albama,  220,  232,  241; 
in  Tennessee,  Virginia,  and  North 
Carolina,  220,  277,  287 

Seward,  W.  H.,  effects  of  secession  on 
North,  196;  on  causes  of  secession, 
252 

Shipping  and  shipbuilding  in  South 
12,  16,  25,  147,  227;  Louisiana  bonus, 
170 

Slavery,  basis  of  sectionalism,  n,  13; 
question  little  discussed  in  direct 
trade  conventions,  30;  as  cause  of 
Southern  "decline,"  47,  196-98,  290- 
92;  responsibility  for  poor  whites, 
53,  198,  223,  292;  hostility  toward  in 
South,  53-54,  218-20,  223,  286-88; 


quarrels  over  augment  interest  in 
manufactures,  commerce,  etc.,  55-58, 
98;  struggles  over  cause  growth  of 
disunion  sentiment,  68,  71-76,  179, 
182,  195,  197;  Southern  defense, 
68,  72,  98,  176,  206-10,  290;  quarrel 
reaches  bitter  stage,  128;  leads  to 
threats  of  commercial  retaliation, 
157-61,  169-70,  175;  West  becoming 
hostile,  187;  attitude  of  Northern 
business  interests,  189-92,  196,  209- 
10;  fears  for  as  cause  of  secession, 
234-36,  239-48,  250,  254,  269,  273, 
281,  283-86,  291;  in  Confederate 
Constitution,  269 

Slaves,  distribution,  ii;  employment  in 
factories  suggested,  41,  54-55;  tried, 
55,  62,  210,  222;  redundancy  of  labor, 
55,  210;  considered  necessary  to  cot- 
ton industry,  207,  290;  prices  rise, 
210;  shift  to  black  belts,  210-11; 
foreign  slave  trade  revived,  211,  215; 
demand  outrunning  supply,  212,  220 
ff. 

Slave  trade,  movement  to  reopen  the 
foreign,  discussed  in  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention,  139,  141,  143-44, 
150,  213-15;  disunionists  and  the 
agitation,  181;  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  movement,  212-16;  motives 
and  arguments  of  advocates  and  op- 
ponents, 216-24;  attitude  of  border 
states,  224;  strength  of  movement, 
224-25;  desire  to  reopen  as  cause  of 
secession,  348,  250-51,  253,  270-72; 
fears  of  revival  delay  secession  of 
border  states,  280 

Smith,  Hamilton,  advocates  manufact- 
ures in  Ohio  valley,  43-46;  suggests 
export  duty  on  cotton,  154 

South  Carolina,  distress  in  agriculture, 
34,  36,  41;  agitation  in  behalf  of 
manufactures,  37  ff.;  Bluffton  move- 
ment, 37-40,  69-70;  hostility  of  white 
labor  to  slaves,  53,  219;  nullification 
in,  65;  party  divisions,  66  f.;  disunion 
movement  (1849-52),  72-74,  76,  77, 
82-85,  89;  question  of  aid  to  manu- 
factures, 155;  discriminatory  tax- 
ation, 156,  160;  and  tariff,  166;  aid  to 
railroads,  172;  agriculture,  203;  and 
revival  of  slave  trade,  213,  215,  217, 
225;  manufactures,  227;  secession, 
231,  239,  243-45,  250-51;  projects  for 
direct  trade,  256;  and  Confederate 
Constitution,  262,  269,  271 

Southern  Commercial  Convention,  ori- 
gin, 123-29;  objects  and  proceedings, 


324     ECONOMIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOUTHERN  SECTIONALISM,  1 84O-l86l    [324 


129-44,  119-20,  162,  163,  167-68, 
173,  174,  178;  composition,  142,  144; 
reasons  for  changes  in  objects  and 
personnel,  144-48;  achievements  and 
results,  134,  140,  145,  146,  148-50; 
a  criticism  of,  174;  and  growth  of  dis- 
unionism,  179,  180;  considers  revival 
of  foreign  slave  trade,  213-24,  passim 

Southern  rights  associations,  77;  Central 
of  Virginia,  117,  158;  for  measures  to 
promote  commercial  independence, 
IS9>  l&9'i  attacks  Virginia  tax  sys- 
tem, 169;  associations  in  Virginia,  158; 
in  Albama,  160 

Southern  Rights  party,  78,  86,  179;  in 
Georgia,  76,  89;  in  Mississippi,  77, 
90,  160;  in  Alabama,  77,  90 

Southern  Wealth  and  Northern  Profits, 
190-92,  254 

Southwestern  Convention,  Memphis,  on 
overproduction  of  cotton,  37;  com- 
position and  proceedings,  124-26 

Spratt,  L.  W.,  advocates  reopening 
foreign  slave  trade,  213,  215,  218,  220, 
222n.,  223;  and  causes  of  secession, 
244,  248;  on  boundaries  of  Confeder- 
acy, 268;  against  interdiction  of  slave 
trade,  271 

Steamship  lines,  advantages  over  sail, 
114;  Federal  government  subsidizes, 
114;  Southern  requests  for  subsidies, 
115,  116,  117,  121,  142;  Virginia's 
interest  in,  115;  Thompson's  pro- 
jects, 116-17;  projects  in  South  Caro- 
lina and  Alabama,  118;  to  Amazon, 
proposed,  118;  Mann's  Steam  Ferry 
project,  119-20,  139,  141,  257;  later 
Virginia  projects,  120-21;  later  pro- 
jects elsewhere,  121-22;  considered 
in  Southern  Commercial  Convention, 
130-33,  139,  141-42;  government  sub- 
sidies discontinued,  164;  projects 
after  secession,  256-57 

Stephens,  A.  H.,  in  direct  trade  conven- 
tion, 17;  against  secession  (1850),  77; 
attributes  prosperity  to  Union,  193; 
compares  Georgia  and  Ohio,  206;  on 
foreign  slave  trade,  217;  Union 
Speech,  237;  "Corner  Stone"  speech, 
246  f.,  269;  on  effects  of  secession, 
249;  and  revenue  provision  of  Con- 
federate Constitution,  262;  on  tariff 
policies  of  Confederacy,  264;  and 
three-fifths  clause,  270 

Sugar  industry,  condition  of,  200 

Tariff  acts  (United  States),  Tariff  of 
1842  and  Bluffton  movement,  37-40; 


Tariff  of  1846  and  cotton  manufac- 
tures, 60;  nullification  in  South  Caro- 
lina, 65-66;  Tariff  of  1846  doesn't 
satisfy  Nullifiers,  70;  attitude  of 
South  (1828-50),  151-56;  tariff  senti- 
ment falls  off,  161-62;  free  trade  and 
direct  taxation  agitated,  139,  141, 
162-64;  South  and  Tariff  of  1857,  163- 
64;  and  Morrill  bill,  165,  254;  South- 
ern attitude  summarized,  88;  see 
also  taxation  and  disbursements 

Tariff  policy  of  Confederacy,  anticipa- 
tions of  disunionists,  181,  183-84,  185, 
1 88,  189,  243,  245;  considerations 
affecting  policy  of  Confederacy,  255, 
259,  267;  policies  of  individual  states 
after  secession,  257-58;  export  duties 
proposed,  260;  provisions  of  Provis- 
ional Constitution,  260;  tariff  acts  of 
Provisional  Congress,  260-61;  pro- 
visions of  Permanent  Constitution, 
261-62;  Tariff  of  May  17,  1861,  262- 
63;  tariff  and  diplomacy,  264-67;  pro- 
tectionist sentiment,  266-67;  effect 
upon  decision  of  border  states,  274-75 

Taxation,  systems  in  Southern  states 
and  cities  criticized,  28,  168-70;  dis- 
criminatory taxation  of  indirect  im- 
ports proposed,  114,  117;  Toombs's 
plan,  139, 168;  discriminatory  taxation 
of  Northern  manufactures  proposed, 
142,  156-57;  discriminatory  taxation 
in  Southern  states,  156;  discrimin- 
atory taxation  considered  during  crisis 
of  1850,  159-61;  policy  under  advise- 
ment to  secession,  167-70;  why  dis- 
crimination not  resorted  to,  171-72; 
George  Fitzhugh  on,  177 

Taxation  and  disbursements  of  Federal 
government,  Southern  "decline"  at- 
tributed to  inequality  of,  22,  67-68, 
80-88,  passim,  289,  292;  tonnage 
duties,  ship  subsidies,  fishing  boun- 
ties, etc.  attacked,  133,  164,  166;  free 
trade  and  direct  taxation  agitated, 
139,  141,  162-64;  South  Carolina 
view  prevails,  182-83,  197,  291;  in- 
equality of  as  cause  for  secession,  237, 
243-54,  passim,  291;  see  also  tariff 
acts  (United  States) 

Tennessee,  disunionists  in,  73,  75,  79n.; 
tariff  sentiment,  151,  166;  aid  to  rail- 
roads, 172;  conditions  of  agriculture, 
203;  political  divisions  based  on 
slavery,  220;  secession  delayed,  233; 
considerations  affecting  decision  to 
secede,  274,  278,  283,  284;  sectional- 
ism and  secession,  287 


325] 


INDEX 


325 


Texas,  "Texas  or  disunion,"  38,  69; 
aid  to  railroads,  172;  agriculture,  202- 
3;  and  foreign  slave  trade,  225;  se- 
cession, 232,  245 

Thornwell,  Dr.  J.  H.,  on  causes  of  se- 
cession, 248 

Tobacco,  foreign  duties  on,  142,  189, 
200;  industry  prosperous,  199;  manu- 
factures of,  228 

Toombs,  Robert,  Unionist  (1850),  77; 
letter  on  discriminiatory  taxation, 
139,  167;  and  secession,  237,  240,  245; 
effects  of  secession,  249;  on  tariff  and 
foreign  policies  of  Confederacy,  266; 
on  admitting  new  states,  269^ 

Townsend,  John,  on  benefits  of  seces- 
sion, 83, 191 

Tucker,  J.  Randolph,  on  benefits  of 
secession  to  Virginia,  274,  275,  281 

Unionists  in  South,  advocate  diversi- 
fication of  industry,  58,  85,  87,  179; 
in  South  Carolina,  65-66;  and  Nash- 
ville Convention,  75;  Union  party 
(in  1850),  76-77,  89-90;  refute  seces- 
sionist arguments,  85-88,  192-95; 
oppose  discriminatory  taxation,  171; 
oppose  agitation  of  slave  trade  ques- 
tion, 216;  opposition  to  secession  in 
1861,  231-33;  their  arguments,  235- 
36,  237;  identified,  in  cotton  states, 
238-43;  arguments  and  motives  in 
border  states,  273-83,  passim,  286- 
88,  291;  identified  in  border  states, 
283-85 

Virginia,  commerce,  19,  20,  95;  banking 
capital  question,  24,  27;  depression 
in  manufactures,  6on.;  secession  senti- 
ment (1850),  73,  88,  91;  projects  for 
steamship  lines  to  Europe,  114-18, 
119-21;  tariff  sentiment,  151,  160; 
commercial  retaliation  and  discrimi- 
natory taxation  discussed,  156,  158- 
60,  168-70;  aid  to  railroads,  172-73; 
agriculture,  203;  and  domestic  slave 


trade,  224;  secession  delayed,  233; 
considerations  affecting  decision  to 
secede,  274-78,  281-83,  285,  287; 
sectionalism,  220,  277,  287 

Warehousing  system,  93,  125 

West,  agricultural  depression,  34;  in- 
terest in  cotton  manufactures,  43; 
political  alliance  with  South,  55, 
124-25,  209;  trade  between  South 
and,  108-9,  J86,  201-3,  207;  effects  of 
secession  upon  relations  of  West  and 
South  considered,  185-86,  189,  258, 
263,  268,  280 

Weston,  George  M.,  on  disunion  move- 
ment, 197  f. 

Whig  party  in  South,  state  rights  ele- 
ment, 66;  attitude  toward  secession 
(1850),  74,  76-77,  89-92;  and  diversi- 
fication of  industry,  87,  152;  and 
slaveholding,  92;  and  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention,  147;  attitude  on 
tariff,  151-54,  161-62;  and  corpor- 
ations, 154;  and  discriminatory  tax- 
ation, 159;  and  state  aid  to  railroads, 
173;  begins  to  dissolve,  179;  attitude 
toward  secession,  238-43,  284-86 

Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  aspira- 
tions, 97;  improvement  of  harbor, 
1 13;  for  secession,  284 

Wise,  Henry  A.,  Calhoun  Democrat, 
92;  on  future  of  Norfolk,  96;  and  de- 
velopment of  Virginia,  176 

Yancey,  W.  L.,  Calhoun  Democrat  and 
disunionist,  90;  in  Southern  Com- 
mercial Convention,  143;  advocates 
disunion,  180;  appeals  to  Northern 
business  interests,  209;  on  foreign 
slave  trade,  2i6n.,  218,  224;  on  eco- 
nomic benefits  of  secession,  237;  on 
commercial  policy  of  Confederacy, 
259;  commissioner  to  Europe,  264- 
66;  on  slave  trade  provision  of  Con- 
federate Constitution,  28 in. 


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